As We Forgive Those
by AlreadyPainfullyGone
Summary: AU Priest!Cas meets with a couple who are about to get married. Dean's already feeling guilty when he enters the church with Lisa, and then it gets so much worse, because Dean recognises the priest, from the bar where they met.
1. Chapter 1

_Hi, _

_Forgive me for asking for a moment of your time, _

_Some may remember the fic I posted a while ago now, 'Me and Mine' the story of a priest falling for a seventeen year old parishioner and the struggle the two had to go through to finally be together. Well, the original was a little over 50,000 words long, rough, scattered with typos, pacing issues and an awful lot of bad writing._

_No longer mired in its humble fan fiction beginnings, the initial tale has grown to a fair bit over 100,000 words, has been proofread, re-written and added to, until only around 40% of the original is left. It is now, if I do say so myself, a finer, more polished work, with original characters, setting and a far more balanced plot._

_Plans are to make the eBook available for a tiny price, under a pound, if that, and the money will go towards funding my Masters in Creative Writing - hopefully enabling me to become a better writer and to produce more fiction._

_More details will be posted in around a week when the book goes live, however, You can follow me at JollySnidge on twitter for more updates on the novel._

_Now, on with what you came for - _

Dean hates wearing a tie. It's not the most important fact about him, but it's the only concern he has as he steps foot outside of his car and goes around to open the door for Lisa. She looks comfortable as always in her best clothes, white linen pants and matching jacket making her skin glow warm and brown. Her hair's long and dark, shiny and soft. Dean can't help but feel fraudulent beside her in his black funeral suit, uncomfortably stiff white shirt and the green silk tie that's trying to push his Adams apple into his throat.

"It'll be fine." Lisa assures him. "God, if you're this nervy now, how are you going to be at the actual wedding?"

Dean smiles, quick and reassuring, swallowing the riotous nerves down and pouring the cement of denial over them.

They walk up the steps to the church and go inside.

It's cool and dark, their footsteps echoing on the stone floor, the walls studded with pictures of saints, looking down on him with judgemental, smudgy eyes. There's a sound like whispering, perhaps the shifting of doves in the tower overhead, but Dean could swear the saints are murmuring as he and Lisa pass by, muttering about the pretender wearing Sunday best rather than his usual ratty plaid and jeans, the man who has never been in a church before in his life, the man with a woman at his side, when just last night...

Dean locks the thought down. That's just his guilt talking, and he's not going to fall victim to it, not now. It's done, and as they say, it cannot be undone.

Lisa takes his hand and leads him in the direction of the priest's office. Dean stiffens his spine and prepares to meet Father Novak, his fiancés priest and the man who will be (hopefully) officiating their wedding.

Somehow Dean had thought that a civil service would have made him less of a liar, less of a fraud. But here they were, this was the church they would marry in. Where Dean would stand in front of five hundred people, a priest and all the saints, and promise to love Lisa and only her as long as he lived. Technically, he supposed that wouldn't be a lie. That didn't make him feel any better.

"Father Novak!" Lisa enters the office ahead of him, Dean following reluctantly behind. She enfolds the dark haired man in an embrace, and though he's not as tall as Dean, he is a few inches taller than Lisa. Dean puts his hands in his pockets awkwardly and looks at the lovingly rendered expression of torment on the face of the cross bound Christ on the wall. Wonderful.

Still, as long as no one asked him to swear, up and down and on a freaking Bible, that he was not a faggot – Dean could get through this with the minimum of deceit. Then he could get married, have a few kids, a picket fence and his entire family could come over for thanksgiving. You know, because they'd still be talking to him.

Lisa releases the priest and he turns to shake Dean's hand.

_He has no idea how he got so lucky, but the guy is out of his corner of the bar and sliding onto the stool next to Dean's within five minutes of his arrival. Dean looks sideways at him. Orders him a beer which comes in a bottle on a paper napkin. The guy, soft dark hair and soft pale skin, drinks the bottle dry, back straight even as Dean lolls on the bar. He's already pretty drunk, laces spilling out of his work boots, jeans riding low on the hips that are starting to show the padding of a comfortable life with a woman in the house. Dean wipes the bottle sweat from his palm onto his green plaid shirt. He reaches over and touches his fingers to the other guys wrist, a low heat already burning in his belly. The guy twists his hand against Dean's light touch, rubbing his own fingers across Dean's palm. Their eyes meet and Dean takes a second to admire the combination of soot black hair and sky blue eyes. _

_Then, out to the alley. Dean's done this before. There's the exchange of 'do you have anywhere we can go?' and of course Dean has Lisa at home, has a car that he can't leave smelling of come and sweat. So he says no. The other guy shrugs, takes them aside into the alley, beneath a fire escape for the abandoned building beside the bar, between two dumpsters, one reeking of beer, the other of rotting grease. _

_The memories are like a sheaf of Polaroid's; The guy on his knees, gasping greedily around Dean's cock as he presses his fingers into the softened swell of the taller man's hips – Dean kissing the smear of come from the dark haired man's reddened mouth – The way his hips had battered the swell of the smaller man's ass as he'd thrust into him, hard and fast, bending him over the dumpster, beer bottles chinking inside – the way the guy hand reached back, squeezing Dean's hip as he moaned hoarsely, gratefully, into the night – the only words they'd exchanged then, 'Harder...oh fuck, just please...please...give it to me..." the words bitten off and desperate in the other man's mouth, and Dean's own inarticulate grunts as he'd complied, fucking hard until the guy went loose and compliant against the cold metal underneath him, spreading his legs and mewling appreciatively – The soft, breathy 'oh yes's' that had dropped from the other man's mouth as Dean pummelled his insides, the guys own hand stroking pulses of thick release as he quivered, the sticky fluid so plentiful it flowed over his fist, hot and slick. – Dean had come inside of him, filling him up and pulling out even as the guy shuddered and moaned in pleasure at the sensation. – Dean had licked the release from inside of him, tongue slipping up inside of the other man, feeling the guys damp thighs shudder in his grip..._

_Dean had licked the guys hand clean._

"...Father." Dean just about manages to produce the word from his dry throat. The dark haired man, smooth body now clad in dark robes, dips his head, ostensibly in greeting, but Dean can see the deep flush spreading like fire over the man's face, the way his hand shakes with panic as it touches the beads that hang from his waist.

"Lisa, Mr Winchester." He breathes, circling back around the desk and sitting down with pronounced relief at having something solid under him.

Dean sat down beside Lisa.

How could this be happening? He'd always been so careful, and he'd been cutting back, steadily, ever since he and Lisa had gotten serious. This was the first time in...Jesus, almost two years...but he'd just felt...like he needed it. He'd been struggling for a week, the dreams had started, the aching morning wood and the dissatisfaction that swamped him even after he'd slept with Lisa, who'd noticed an increase in his frowning, agitated behaviour. He'd needed last night, and it had been like...he'd left the alley, driven home swaddled in the cotton wool of a really good orgasm, warm all over and satisfied in a way his random fucks had never left him before. The guy had been wild, and Dean had actually pulled over on the way home to relive the urgency, the begging, pleading, rough as sandpaper voice.

And now he was really paying for it.

The priest seems unable to look him anywhere near the eye and Dean snaps out of his dark cloud to hear Lisa saying,

"Well, I'll leave you guys to it then." She gets up and pats Dean's shoulder. "I'll be walking in the grounds."

And then she's gone.

"It's customary for me to interview both parties separately before the wedding, to see if they are..." his voice trails off and quivers as he says, "Please don't tell anyone."

Dean's kind of having trouble listening to him speak without hearing him beg for him to fuck him harder. He has trouble compartmentalising with stuff like that.

"I'm not going to." He says.

The priest sags in relief, but there's still guilt still etched on his face. "I'm sorry...I..." He bites the edge of his lip and Dean remembers the salt tang of his own come on that lip as he'd drawn it into his mouth. "You have to understand that last night..." he looks positively broken now, "I hardly ever...give in to...that. But once or twice I have...I've fallen...or allowed myself..."

"I was there too, remember?" Dean folds his arms over his slightly curved stomach protectively. "I'm the one getting married...but...I sometimes, need it, I guess."

The priest sighs, crumpling in on himself.

"So we don't tell anyone...we just, get through this." Dean says decisively.

The priest looks at him, and Dean sees the memory of all the acts they'd performed writ large on his face.

Dean feels suddenly that he should apologise for fucking him, for enjoying the priest's lips on his cock, for licking him out, emptying him of his own release.

The priest flushes like he knows what Dean's thinking, and at the sight of his blushing face, Dean's guilt curdles into a desire so sudden it shames him. His next breath is unsteady and the priest's eyes drop down to his mouth, hunger growing in their stunningly bright depths.

The desire which Dean knows should be sated for at least another year, rears up, and he feels a distinct graze of heat against his skin, like a living thing is nuzzling him.

And right then, is when he knows he's in trouble.


	2. Chapter 2

_Hello everyone, just so you know, the novel 'Me and Mine' that I've been yammering about is now available on amazon in the kindle store. There's a link on my profile, and I'd really appreciate your interest. _

_There are also some nifty trailers for it on youtube, the links for which can be found on twitter, you can follow me at JollySnidge._

Dean can't sleep.

To be fair, he knows he doesn't deserve sleep. He had been unfaithful to Lisa, with a man, a priest no less, the priest who was performing their wedding in two months, the priest who he could. Not. Stop. Thinking. About.

He rolls onto his side and is confronted by the scent of roses and cotton rising from Lisa's body, at odds with the memory of sweat and spunk and sandalwood. Dean grits his teeth and rolls onto his back.

When did it become so hard to not think about fucking men? He'd kept himself in line for years, for as long as he and Lisa had been dating, and before they even met. He had long been able to resist the appeal of firmer flesh, of like bodies and dark hair and blue eyes and...

Fuck.

He rolls onto his face.

Sleep.

His brain ignores him. Sends him images of Father Novak, begging and bent over.

Dean can taste him, taste them, in his mouth.

Finally he gets up, drags sweats on over his boxers, picks up a T-shirt. The streets are dark still, greying as the morning approaches, so he runs. It's cool and the air is damp from overnight rain. His sneakers pad on the sidewalk and his t-shirt scuffs under his arms as they pump along with his legs. This is his escape from Lisa and from his desire – going until his body is exhausted, his mind lulled.

A hill springs up under his soles, he runs on, climbing steadily, sweat trickling down his back as his skin heats up. His breath comes in short sips with each step. He has let his body go a little since he and Lisa moved in together. He'd gotten a steady office job and quit construction, which had softened his middle and added heaviness to his arms and thighs.

Maybe he should run more.

He pelts ahead, running faster and breaking his careful pace every time the priest's voice or scent or suffocating heat came to mind. Even memories from before they'd had sex stirred him, the long, slender fingers on the neck of the sweating beer bottle, made his blood sing.

He closes his eyes as a breath of wind creeps past the morning horizon, cooling his face and ruffling the damp cotton of his shirt.

The body he slams into is a surprise, and he stumbles, feels his ankle give, twists his body to compensate and remains upright. He sweeps his damp hair out of his eyes one handed, the other palm soothing a stitch as he gasps, only just realising how far he'd pushed himself.

He'd be apologising, extending a hand to help, but he's recognised the man on the ground, struggling to his feet in cut off black sweats and a white tee – Dean cannot believe that God has done this to him twice in twenty-four hours.

Father Novak gets back to his feet, one hand inspecting his ribs warily. Dean jumps into action, raising a hand half heartedly in a helpful gesture.

"Are you..."

"I'm fine." The dark haired man doesn't look at him, pointedly keeps his eyes lowered.

"If you were, you'd be leaving." Dean sighs. "Sit down."

They're on a curve of road without a sidewalk, wooden barrier along the side, woodland on a steep slope below. It's at least two miles out of town. Greyish mist circulating the pines that shadow them. The priest limps to the barrier, steps over awkwardly and sits on the wood, legs over in the grass and blue flowered weeds. He rubs his knee and winces.

Dean perches next to him, looks down over the tall dark trees and the slowly rising sun.

"So...the other night, not a regular thing for you?"

The priest purses his lips and looks away pointedly.

"Well, I've got you trapped here for a while, thought I'd ask." Dean shrugs.

"Do you cheat on Lisa a lot?" The priest says pointedly.

"Ouch Father." Dean sets his jaw. "Fine we don't have to talk about it."

"Castiel." The other man's brows furrow, spiky and dark. "My title is not part of this."

"Sorry, forgot. You're only a priest when you don't have a cock up your ass." Dean bites out, still stinging from Castiel's remark about Lisa.

He's not prepared for the other man's tired face to crumple in anger, for Castiel throw himself off of the barrier and into Dean, sending them both down the scrubby slope where Dean's back hits a pine trunk and Castiel's bare knees scuffle needles and leaves on either side of Dean's legs. Those pale, pretty fingers have a terrifying strength, and Dean feels them wrap in the cotton of his shirt, jerking him up a little way until the enraged priest is staring him in the eye – the eyes of a white tiger in a cage, deadly and impatient.

"Once a year. My birthday. I find I can't help but feel in need of...an outlet." Castiel snarls. "Rest assured, you were a necessity, had there been others, I would have chosen better."

He's on his feet in an easy movement, leg still weak but stable as he stalks away from Dean, knees reddened and indented by forest trash.

Dean gets up, face red and feeling a tense burn of rage and humiliation. He sprints after the other man, catching Castiel easily and throwing him to the ground by the back of his shirt, covering the white cotton in burs and bits of leaf. Castiel grunts angrily on impact, scuffling even as Dean drops over him and pins him with the weight of his body.

"Let's review, shall we?" Dean pants as Castiel squirms. "Who sat next to who?"

"You sonofa..." Dean shakes him like a terrier with a rabbit and Castiel drops his shoulders back to the ground.

"Who accepted a beer from who? Who came out to the alley – with me?"

Castiel's eyes blaze hate up from his position on the ground.

"Who let me fuck them, over a dumpster?" Dean's voice lowers, soft and insinuating. "Add all that up Father...seems like you're kind of a cock slut."

Castiel kicks him viciously off of him and then they're scuffling in the leaves and pine needles, stray punches and kicks landing amidst scratching fingers and twisting bodies. Castiel clips Dean's jaw with a hard left hook, Dean punches him in the stomach – traps Castiel's arms, the priest head buts him in the nose and rolls away whilst tears spring to Dean's eyes, slamming a cupped fist into Dean's back and sending him into a sprawl on the ground.

They grapple in close quarters, rolling around on the floor as Dean grabs Castiel's arms, and the priest tries to hold Dean's at his sides, keeping them at an impasse. They realise as one that their faces are only an inch or so apart.

Castiel's nose is bleeding, a thin line of dark red on his white skin, Dean can taste blood.

How they get from there to kissing, hard and desperate, is a question of energy, anger and a need that has plagued them both since that night. Each man knows that this is the thing that will hurt the other the most – addiction and want twisting worse than a knife in the gut once they're done.


	3. Chapter 3

_Hello everyone, just so you know, the novel 'Me and Mine' that I've been yammering about is now available on amazon in the kindle store. There's a link on my profile, and I'd really appreciate your interest. _

_There are also some nifty trailers for it on youtube, the links for which can be found on twitter, you can follow me at JollySnidge._

_This is kind of an open call for people to spread the word about my novel, I've sold a lot of copies this past week, but I really want to reach more people. So any help there would be greatly appreciated._

The way Castiel bucks up into him is almost savage. The scent of torn earth and blood surrounds them, sticky pine resin and exhaust fumes forming the base notes of their frantic breathing. Castiel cries out as Dean's fingers bruise his thin hip, Dean almost snarls into his pale throat at the wrecked sound. There is nothing tender between them, Dean would not even recognise himself in this scene – a dirt streaked, carnally intent man writhing with the bloody nosed pale man on the ground. He'd be a stranger to his own eyes, and to Lisa's.

Castiel's hands go up under Dean's shirt, scoring his back in thin lines with his blunt nails. Their hips press together, thrusting with no finesse and even less rhythm as both men shift, trying to find a better angle.

Dean leans back long enough to pull his shirt off, dragging Castiel up and tearing the other man's shirt up and over his head, tousling his dark hair still further, dislodging dirt and leaf fragments. Bare chest to bare chest they rut on the ground, Castiel's arms around Dean's waist, palming his ass as the smaller man grinds up. Misty rain falls through the trees covering them in misty waves as it reaches the ground, until their skin is damp and cold at its outermost, scorching under its thin veil of water.

Castiel rolls them over, and Dean almost growls out a protest, but then the priest tugs down Dean's sweats, his boxers following shortly after, so his waist down to his calves is bared, cloth around his ankles. Castiel pushes his own shorts down, underwear too, lying back over Dean so that their rain dampened upper halves seal together, the lower, burning portions of their bodies meeting seamlessly as both men groan and growl into each other's mouths. Castiel's blood is smudged over Dean's chin.

Dean is burning up, stomach twisted tight with arousal and guilt, his cock a solid, needy weight against Castiel's own. He can't wait, literally cannot subdue his mind from rushing ahead and imagining the feel of that hot, tight body wrapped around his aching hardness. He lets out a gruff sound of disappointment, followed by protest, when Castiel pulls away and forces him over onto his knees with all his reedy strength.

Dean instantly stiffens, knees locking on the ground as he tries to turn, only to be stopped by a strong hand on his back.

Dean's breathing heavily as two long fingers run down between the cheeks of his ass, pressing firmly, circling, before relenting, dropping down to cradle his sack in a warm palm.

"I don't do that." Dean can't keep the tension out of his voice.

The fingers return, insistent, and Dean feels, for the first time, a dart of fear. He had not considered this a fight he could lose, had not in all honesty considered the stakes of the game they were playing.

"Not that way." He says, quieter, head dipping forwards, spine tense at the deceptively gentle probing.

"Are you a virgin Dean?" The priest's voice is low, dangerously so, redolent with half speculative, half mocking concern.

Anger flares along his spine.

"Shut up." He fists the earthen trash on the ground, the conviction to walk away growing in him. "Get off me."

But Dean doesn't move, and when he feels the wet, thick point of a tongue lave against his hole, his legs shake and he makes a sound he's utterly ashamed of. Castiel draws back, circles him with two fingers again, then the slow wet lap of his tongue, knocking Dean's breath from him as it presses just slightly _in_.

Dean groans, long and shakily.

Castiel's laugh is short and rough at the back of his throat. He strokes his fingers down Dean's crack again, circles his entrance, licks and swirls his tongue just a little further in this time. Dean's breathing catches in a low grunt, legs trembling under him, cock throbbing in response to the heretofore inexperienced stimulation. He's never felt this before, never felt anything like it. He just knows it can't stop, not now, fuck – not ever.

He's rocking back through the chill, damp air, filling himself with the long, quivering length of Castiel's tongue as the other man licks and swirls it through him, tracing outlines and reaching just shy of his core in a way that makes Dean feel like shucking off his own skin, turning himself inside out just to feel that warm, wet, probing deeper inside of him. Castiel's strong hands separate his buttocks, pressing so close, so far into Dean that his every breath reeks of musk, his mouth fills with the raw, deep taste of it. Both of them are untouched, cocks filled and aching with the need to finish, to come and come hard after this exhilarating battle of wills and bodies.

Still, when Castiel withdraws his tongue and slips two fingers into the slackened ring of muscle, Dean's spine tenses with uncertainty, a groan of half pleasure, half doubt escaping his dry lips.

"I don't..." He shudders as a talented finger loops around his prostate, turning maddening circles. "I don't bottom...I..._christ..." _The teasing digit final runs across the aching space that had been up until then, barren of touch. Pleasure grips Dean's body, tightly and maddeningly, a snare of warm silk and hot iron.

"You're a natural." Castiel murmurs, fingers scissoring slowly and deliberately.

Dean shakes his head even as he spreads his legs, knees dipping as Castiel adds a third finger.

Then they're gone, and Dean is left swaying slightly backwards, legs splayed on the ground, shaking and mostly naked to the misty rain and the forest air. He feels shuddery and broken down, stupidly open and bare – eyes burning.

A car hisses past on the road up the slope.

Dean hears Castiel spit behind him.

The pull his palm as it slicks him.

Dean closes his eyes.

The pressure is unbearable, insistent, slow and implacable. Castiel's hips move forwards at intervals, a soft sound of pleasure uncoiling from the other man as he sinks deeper, burying his aching, chilled skin inside of Dean's tense but willing body. Each shy clench of the channel around him slows his progress, but the give of Dean, as the other man slowly relaxes himself, is almost hypnotically good. The steady beating of his heart present in this most private muscle, holding and then stroking along down Castiel's shaft.

If he'd thought having Dean batter him in the alley behind the bar was vulgarly perfect – then this is the ultimate in delicate pleasure. The strong man, taught as a bow beneath him, the slow shuddering of his damp skin as Castiel pushes into him, touching where no one has touched...Castiel feels utter bliss warm him, as the sex itself heats him from the filthy soles of his feet to the roots of his hair.

He reaches the height of that first thrust and Dean moans, soft and barely conscious of anything but his stretched rim and his innermost channel, packed full.

Castiel draws back and thrusts again.

Again, again, again – each time a little faster, a little harder, until Dean moves his knees, his tense thighs, and pushes back into the impaling motion, bringing them crashing together.

After that they devolve, couple violently, Castiel's hands grasping, body straining to dominate and subject Dean to harder, faster and more punishing thrusts – even as Dean fights the push down in order to force Castiel inside of him, to feel again the lick of warmth in him that the other man's motion against his insides elicits.

Castiel doesn't come apart until the end, crying out and rolling his hips into Dean's desperately, half blessings, half expletives dripping from him and he unravels, seizes up and paints Dean's insides hot and deep.

The unfamiliar sensation stops Dean's almost dead, a quiver going through him even as Castiel's dirt smeared hand jacks his waiting cock to completion, rutting shallowly into the mess of their coupling even as he strokes.

Dean comes over Castiel's hand and the dry leaves below. Panting and choking on his own excitement. With both of them growing limp and cold, they shuffle apart and pluck up their damp clothing, pulling it on and looking up at the road.

Both men realise how very stupid they have been. They could have been seen, caught by someone walking in the woods. Some kind of depraved miracle has kept them safe, and for that they are both thankful. Dean cannot look at Castiel, cannot look at the man who matched him so evenly in their fight and who made him submit to an act which Dean had never until now wanted to experience.

He has never bottomed, never wanted to - always fearing that it was a step closer to losing what made him normal, what made him a man.

Now he does not know how he feels.

Castiel looks at him, a bruise forming on his cheek, unease obvious in his stiff, angry posture.

"Twice, in one year is my limit." He says numbly. "If you see me again, I don't care where – you stay away, understand?"

Dean nods, despite himself, the fight draining from him along with the fluid running out into his underwear.

"The next time I see you, you'll be standing at the altar with her, clear?"

Again, Dean nods.

When Castiel walks away, Dean watches him go, then he begins his own limping journey home, sore, bruised and still wet with Castiel's come.

_Good news, I'm planning actual plot for this, so stay tuned _


	4. Chapter 4

_Hi guys, I'm now on tumblr (same name as twitter – JollySnidge) to review fics and M/M books. _

"May God, Eternal Father, keep you one in mutual love, so that the peace of Christ may reside with you and remain always in your home. Amen. So that you may be blessed with children, and find consolation among your friends, and that you may be at peace with all. Amen. Be witnesses of God's love in the world. Be good and generous to the poor and afflicted so that one day they may welcome you in Heaven. Amen".

Castiel's eyes are on the wall at the back of the church, his head bowed slightly as he recites the final blessing from memory.

"And may Almighty God bless all you who are united here, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen".

"Amen." The guests of the wedding, seated in their pews, echo.

"You may now kiss the bride." Castiel says clearly.

Dean and Lisa kiss in front of him, both grinning, illuminated by their own happiness. The assembled ranks of their families beam up at the altar, at the two newlyweds both dressed in white – white dress, white morning suit, and Castiel between them like a shadow in his black robes.

The priest supposes that it's good he feels ashamed of himself. Shame is after all the appropriate thing to feel here, in the Lords house, as he binds together two souls, one of which has been damned by his own hand.

The jealousy however, is an entirely new experience.

He has come to terms with the fact that he is but human, even with his position as a priest and the faith he has in God. It was a compromise he'd made in his yearly excursions to the bar where he had met Dean. Every year he calmed the demons of his libido so that he could control them for another turn of the calendar. Usually the sex was perfunctory, he met a stranger, allowed the act itself to take place and walked away physically satisfied, if ashamed with himself. He had never gone with the same man twice, had never seen any of them again, and none of them had come close to making him feel...

Lisa smiles up at him and thanks him for the beautiful service. Dean has refuses to look at him.

The jealousy rears its ugly head again, chased with shame like a bitter drink.

Clearly this is his punishment for trying to cast sin in the light of a logical compromise.

Dean's parents embrace their son, both drunk on pride and glowing with joy. Castiel retreats like a shrinking shade in the full light of their raucous enthusiasm. Their son is married, as of today. Dean, the perfect son, perfect husband.

And even though it's over, even though Castiel has freed himself from Dean's siren appeal, he cannot help but think. Cannot help but want to say to Lisa's shining, blissful face.

"I had him first."

Envy burns in his eyes, the knowledge hurts him - that he has been to the core of what makes Dean who he is, that all Lisa has is a lie - a pretty fiction to save Dean from becoming an outcast.

A shadow.

Once the wedding party has vacated the church, leaving him with swathes of white roses and programmes all bearing the names 'Dean Winchester and Lisa Braedan' Castiel walks out, locks up and walks down the street to his home. It's a bungalow, fitted with all the assistant paraphernalia of age, thanks to its previous occupant. Castiel turns on the lights, sits at the kitchen table and drinks a glass of wine. He goes to bed alone, and tries not to think of the darkness around him as a wedding night.

(-*-)

"Are we fans of panacotta or fawn?" Lisa asks, idly edging the sample square of colour on the wall. She's on the third step of a small step ladder, brush in hand, and a smudge of pale paint on her cheek.

"They're both cream." Dean points out, leaning on the ladder to keep it steady. "I agreed on cream...I just didn't know you'd find fifteen varieties."

"And I narrowed it down to two." Lisa counters, then frowns at the wall. "Unless...is ivory better? No...buttermilk."

Dean smiles evilly. "I can just push this ladder over you know." He shakes it a little and Lisa shrieks, clutching at the top.

"Don't you dare!" She giggles, transferring her grip from the ladder to his shoulders, sliding to the floor. "That, was mean."

"Playful." Dean defends, Lisa slaps him on the arm. "Ouch."

"You deserved it." Lisa shrugs.

Dean drops his hands to her hips, pushing her gently up against the wall, he leans in slowly, smirk dissolving as he kisses her. As he trails from her mouth down her neck, Lisa giggles breathlessly.

"You're getting paint in my hair...mmm..."

Dean's tugging her old decorating shirt upwards when Lisa takes his hands in hers and stills them. He looks up at her.

"I just remembered, I have that thing at the church." She winces apologetically.

Dean sighs.

"I really need to shower." Lisa unbuttons her shirt on the way to the bathroom. "Are you coming with?"

"To the church or the shower?" Dean asks, putting brushes away.

"Both." Lisa grins, twirling into the bathroom and out of sight.

Dean abandons the clearing up and heads straight for the bathroom, pulling his shirt off over his head as he does so. Climbing into the steaming shower cubicle however, is put out of his mind by Lisa's next words.

"But I'm sure Father Novak wouldn't mind, you know, if you wanted to come along?"

Dean ignores the stiffness in his shoulders at the mention of that name. He hasn't heard it in a while. Lisa rarely mentions the priest, and when Dean thinks of him, or dreams of him, he is always 'Castiel'.

"Yeah, I don't think so." Dean says quietly, pausing on the threshold of the shower, jeans still clinging to his hips.

"He'd like it if you came." Lisa wheedles.

Dean grunts vaguely, a sound intended to indicate that he feels that isn't the case.

"He always asks about you." Lisa says offhandedly. "Are you coming in or what?" She asks.

"No...I uh...I'm going for a run first." Dean says distractedly.

"You run too much." Lisa chides good naturedly.

"Well, five days a week sitting on my ass, I need it." Dean turns and starts looking for his shirt and sweats. It's true - a year of married life has already taken its toll on the softening of his body. He finds it by turns shaming and comforting – evidence that he's settled and normal.

"Ok, I'll see you when I'm done at the church." Lisa shrugs under the hot water.

"Have fun." Dean says absently, but he doesn't hear her reply.

Their marriage is a year old, practically, and Dean has done his level best to make it a success. He hasn't been with a man since before the wedding. He's stopping himself from fantasising, from watching any kind of porn on his private laptop – anything that could reawaken that side of himself.

He's actually happy, now that he and Lisa are a proper married couple. His family is ecstatic, his Mom always bringing over cookies and stopping to talk with Lisa in the kitchen. He's been the recipient of many pats on the back from his Dad, and both of his parents are asking when they're going to be grandparents – which they're working on, much to Dean's excitement – he's always thought he'd make a good Dad.

Only Sam seems curiously absent, his visits to the house have decreased since the wedding, and he avoids having Dean over to his own home – coming up with excuses. Dean knows they're excuses because once, when Sam said he was at work, Dean had seen him in a starbucks on the other side of town to the Garrison and Son's law firm.

Dean figured Sam maybe had a crush on Lisa, he'd had a slight feeling that Sam really liked her when they were going out. Or maybe his brother had a new girlfriend, or a lot on his mind about work.

There could be a hundred reasons.

Dean definitely isn't thinking of the little speech Sam had given him ten minutes before the wedding. Because that was settled, after all. It could have nothing to do with Sam's distance now.

Somehow Dean ends up wondering if Father Novak really asked about him.

But he pushes that thought away, right alongside Sam's speech and the slight feeling of panic he'd felt when Lisa had pulled away from him – like she knew he'd been thinking about Castiel, right before she asked him about the paint.


	5. Chapter 5

_Hi guys, I'm now on tumblr (same name as twitter – JollySnidge) to review fics and M/M books. There's also a link to my own novel in my profile. _

It's Castiel's birthday.

Worse, it's Castiel's birthday and Dean has remembered. Or rather, he's remembering, right now, at work. Remembering in a crowded boardroom meeting that he should probably be paying attention to. Usually he'd be thinking about beer, hot pumpkin pie – other things he can't have because this is the life he chose goddamn it, a life without carbs, working a sit-down office job, married to a woman. A beautiful, smart amazing woman who'd made him breakfast that morning and waved him off like something out of a fifties movie.

Yet, it's Castiel's birthday. Cruising day as he's privately calling it, and in about five hours Castiel is going to be out, maybe in a bar, maybe a club – but looking for someone to fuck. One night only.

Dean stands up as the meeting closes, shakes hands with someone who might be his bosses boss and buttons his charcoal grey jacket. He walks to his office, smiles at his secretary and sits at his desk, foot tapping nervously.

He's been married for a year. Probably the best, least stressful year of his life. Or at least his adult life. A year of barbecues, dinner parties, lazy long weekends and bulk shopping at Costco. His parents are proud, he's happy, and Lisa – Lisa is perfect, she's always been perfect.

But there's that lingering memory, scented like wet asphalt and stale beer, frantic and cold, dark air on his skin. There's Castiel under his skin, filling up the spaces in his sunlit little life like a shadow, a dream tangled in the corner like last night's sheets.

It's a need he can't shake. One he's almost afraid of, because Dean has never wanted anyone this much.

And tonight might be the one night he gets to have something like that again.

Really, the decision was made as soon as he remembered what day it was. Or sooner, it was made the second Castiel told him about his once-annually rule. Still, he agonises, even past the point where he calls Lisa from the office, tells her he's getting a late dinner with some of the other guys, that he won't be home till later.

Then, somehow, he's standing at the door to Castiel's bizarre little house, feeling himself sweat under his stupidly tight suit as he knocks on the door.

When Castiel opens it in a t-shirt and jeans, Dean feels his stomach sour. So he was right, Castiel was off to find someone else.

A weird mix of emotion sweeps over Castiel's features – surprise, pain, disapproval and finally, to Dean's delight, pleasure.

"I was..." Castiel's long pale fingers move nervously on the edge of the door. "Just on my way out."

"I guess now you don't have to go anywhere." Dean says, with a lot more bravery than he feels - a year out of the game has left him just that – out of the game.

Castiel takes a step backwards, a small smile evident on his lips. "I guess not."

Dean steps over the threshold, out of the natural darkness of the evening, and into the gloom of a house designed for a man much older than Castiel's scant years. It has the lingering smell of a feline companion, everything looks like it could have been owned by someone's grandpa.

Castiel frowns at his dowdy surroundings, as if noticing them for the first time – as if, when wearing his robes and doing his duty, his was above all this aged debris – and suddenly, tonight, he isn't. Like Cinderella in reverse – letting his worst colours show, the ugly core of himself, just for tonight.

"Umm...not out here." Castiel says, beckoning him through the musty living room, then the kitchen, finally into a smaller room with a washer dryer and a tiled floor. It's small and cold, but it smells cleaner, fresher than the rest of the bungalow, so Dean doesn't mind. He knows, from his own liaisons on the side, that seldom used rooms with no troublesome soft furnishings to air out are the best.

"The utility room." Castiel says stiffly, like he's giving a tour.

"Great." Dean responds neutrally.

They pause for a second, on the edge, and it occurs to him that he can still say no. He can go home to Lisa. So why does that thought make him panic, make him want to fling himself further into this before he can escape.

He touches Castiel instinctively, hands palming his hips, sliding upwards. The other man tilts his head to one side, eyes slowly hooding.

"Hang on." He lifts his hands, slowly unthreads Dean's tie and pulls it loose from his collar, unbuttoning his shirt patiently. His hands push first Dean's suit coat off of his shoulders, then his red braces, letting them fall to his sides. Castiel frowns upwards, runs purposeful fingers through Dean's neatly parted hair, ruffling it into its natural peaks and spikes.

"There." Castiel seems satisfied. His eyes catch Dean's own, tired and strained from looking at his computer all day. "Now you look like you."

Dean kisses him, all the hunger he's been pushing down for the last year pouring to the fore. Castiel gives to him amicably, tipping his head up, hands clinging to Dean's sides. Dean is suddenly, painfully aware of the change in his body since he and Castiel were last together (8 and a quarter pounds exactly – he knows like it's tattooed into his hips). But the squeeze of Castiel's fingers as he becomes rougher, all devouring mouth and the ten sharp, hot points of his fingers digging into the softer flesh of him – is somehow more of a turn on, more satisfying, than the way Lisa tactfully leaves that area alone.

When Castiel drops to his knees Dean backs up against the wall, feeling that soft, hungry mouth devouring him, laving hot stripes of sensation over the rise of his stomach, pushing his shirt up, unzipping and tugging down his pants to nips at the slight red indentation the waistband left. Castiel gently lowers Dean's underwear, then his mouth wraps hungrily around his cock, still only half hard but lengthening, throbbing under Castiel's ministrations. Dean thrusts a helpless hand into the soft dark hair of the man before him, Castiel makes a low sound at the back of his throat, favouring Dean with a quick burst of intense suction that actually makes the taller man's legs shake.

He pulls back only to look up at Dean, blue eyes wide and lips reddened and shiny with sucking.

"Take the rest of your clothes off." Castiel tells him.

It takes Dean a second to get his thoughts in order, remembering that he doesn't want to leave evidence, or the scent of Castiel anywhere near his clothes.

The priest stands up and undoes his own belt, not looking at Dean as the larger man fumbles with his suit pants. Castiel removes his jeans, tugs his shirt off over his head and considers the curve of Dean's back as the other man stoops to shuck off his pants and shoes. Finally naked they stand in front of each other, drinking in the sight of bared, male skin – each of them experiencing it for the first time in a year.

"So...you've had a while to think about how you want this to go." Dean looks at Castiel's slim hips, the heavy, blood rich flesh of his cock. He remembers, with the strength of a sudden vision, what the other man felt like inside of him.

"Yes." Castiel admits softly.

Dean waits and Castiel, sensing that any possibility of conversation is at an end, stoops to collect a condom packet and a sachet of lube from his jeans, rising with them held between his fingers.

He gestures at the cold, white surface of the washer dryer.

"Bend over."

The fact that Dean does, willingly, thrills both of them, adding a spike of arousal to the air. He rests his upper body on the chill metal surface, hands on either side of him, legs spreading until he can feel cold air between them. He swallows nervously, touching his forehead to the cold appliance, feeling his sweat turn cold on it.

Castiel's fingers stroke up the inside of his thighs, thumbs parting him easily. A drizzle of cold lube running down between Dean's spread cleft makes the larger man jerk, then hot fingers slick through the mess, rubbing earnestly, needily.

"I remember – last time, you fought more." Castiel murmurs, and the indignation Dean feels only adds the warring feelings of pleasure and fear in him, making his head spin.

"Last time..." Dean's breath is stolen by the initial breech of a long, brisk finger. "...I didn't know...what to expect." He finally crumples to the feeling as Castiel's other hand strokes at the soft skin between his legs, a second finger sliding in along with the first. "Oh..._fuck." _ Dean pants against the surface he leans on, a foggy crescent spreading from his mouth.

The third finger makes his knees buckle, his spine stiffening as he shoves back against Castiel's firm hand. Dean leans more to his side, freeing himself to reach a hand down to his cock, aching against the body warmed but frictionless metal.

Castiel seizes his wrist and slams Dean's hand back on top of the washer, making him wince.

"Was that expected?" Castiel asks softly.

"...no..."Dean leans more heavily on the appliance under him, offering himself up, readily. He's been ready for god knows how long. Now he just _needs_.

"I'd hate to bore you." Castiel murmurs.

It's all the warning Dean gets before he's split open, the long, thick push into him robs him of most of his thoughts, and he's only aware of Castiel's harsh sips of breath, the trembling in his own legs and in the other man's knees as he maintains a steady pressure. There's a burn Dean has only felt once before, and he revels in it, groaning into the surface under his lips, feeling sweat soak his hair, running down his back to the place where he's joined to the priest.

It's only a matter of moments before Dean gathers enough of himself to push backwards against Castiel, he feels the other man clamp a hand onto his shoulder, holding steady as he thrusts forwards, as deep as he can get. Again, Dean feels the unbearably intense sensation course through his veins, sending him down, down into a hot dark place where his only awareness is of pleasure.

When Castiel reaches, finally, to take him in hand, Dean's awareness comes in fits and bursts, white hot and immediate. He can feel the quick tug of the hot palm on his cock, Castiel's breath against the back of his neck, the heavy onslaught of each thrust, flashes of sensation coming faster, overtaking him and shutting down his senses one by one and leaving him crashed out on the surface of the washer, coming over Castiel's hand as he clamps down on the other man, milking him unconsciously as Castiel shudders to a halt, leaning heavily on Dean's back as he empties himself.

Castiel breathes unsteadily, slowly drawing out and smoothing a hand down Dean's flank. His other hand disposes of the condom. He presses a shaky, almost involuntary kiss to Dean's shoulder before allowing the other man to stand up, though Dean leans one hand on the machine for support. Castiel looks at him for a moment, chest still rising and falling erratically with his racing breath, then he reaches up to touch Dean's face, drawing them slowly together, damp skin pressing together, seeking comfort as they kiss, lips tasting of salt sweat.

Dean reaches between them, strokes Castiel's flaccid cock gently, making the other man whine and press his face against Dean's neck.

"Fifteen minutes." Castiel murmurs slackly against Dean's salty skin. His hand slides down the curve of Dean's ass, pressing against the slack, slick muscle that would take him again, easily, and will, soon. "Just once more."

Dean twists slightly, kisses him, deep and hard.

"Twice." He retorts, voice roughened from moans he can't remember letting out.

When Castiel sags against him, into the touch of his stroking, tormenting fingers, it's in relieved agreement.


	6. Chapter 6

Dean rolls to one side, the warm sweat on his back meeting the soft cotton of the under sheet. His abdomen is still heavy and sated with the aftershocks of his orgasm, warmth that chases around under his skin. He lets his eyes slip closed, pleasure lulling him towards sleep.

A movement at his side forces him to open his eyes, glancing over at where Lisa is lying with her head angled at the foot of the bed, a pillow under her lower back, legs thrown up on the head board.

"Is that really necessary?" He asks tiredly.

"Increases the chances." Lisa tells him. "By something like sixty percent."

"You just made that up."

"Kinda." Lisa smiles, her face flushed and hair coiling softly over the white sheets in dishevelled strands. "Can't hurt though."

"Mmmhmm." Dean lets his eyes fall closed again.

"You're still sure? About this?" Lisa asks quietly.

Dean opens his eyes, frowning at her. "Of course I am - we've been married for two years, more or less. Good a time as any to start trying."

"I know, and I'm obviously for it." Lisa gestures at her elevated legs. "But...I don't know, you seem a little..."

"What?" Dean prompts at her continued silence.

"Distracted." Lisa finishes. "Like you're worried about something."

"Did that seem 'distracted' to you?" Dean huffs exhaustedly. "I think I strained something."

"It was very much appreciated." Lisa assures him. "But you don't really seem...overjoyed with how things are, since we got married."

"I'm just a little..." Dean leans up on one elbow. "It's been a big change, from how I was before we got together...and work's all kinds of stressful right now, plus there's going to the gym and my Mom being sick..."

Lisa touches his arm.

"She'll be ok." She assures him gently.

"I know, but...things have kind of gotten on top of me...I'm working on it." Dean closes his eyes, drops his head back to the pillow. "I'll get back to normal, promise."

"I don't need you to be normal – just...I want you to be happy...so if there's anything I can do..."

"You're perfect." Dean murmurs. "Always have been."

"Wait till you see me with stretch marks." She sighs.

"They'll be perfect stretch marks." Dean smirks sleepily. "Along with beautiful morning sickness and gorgeous swollen ankles..."

Lisa smacks him lightly on the arm.

"Not cool Dad." She giggles.

"Violence never solved anything Mom." He retorts.

Lisa turns herself the right way up after a while, snuggles down next to him and falls asleep almost instantly. Dean curls himself around his wife, fingers running over her soft, dark hair absently.

It's been almost six months since he slept with Castiel, although, sleeping hadn't played much part in it, as the old innuendo went. Since that night he's been promoted, another rung up the career ladder and a new office with a square foot of extra space. He uses his longer lunch hour to use the treadmill at the office gym, working up a sweat from twelve noon till half one has done a lot to get him back in shape, though not the shape he had before.

More than his Mom's hospital visits it's Sam's distance that's worrying him. That he can't talk to Lisa about, as she doesn't seem to notice anything is wrong. He can't exactly tell her that Sam thinks their whole marriage is a lie. That while Dean was dressing for his wedding Sam had stood beside him and gave him a whole, planned, speech.

"_You know you don't love her...why are you doing this, to yourself and Lisa – it's wrong Dean."_

"_You don't know what you're talking about Sam." _

"_I know everything Dean – about Tom in high school? That 'friend' Mark of yours from the construction site...you can't marry Lisa when you're into guys."_

"_I'm not...Sam, it's not like that, I love Lisa – I am going to marry Lisa in...five minutes."_

"_That doesn't make you any less gay Dean!" Sam had been exasperated, pleading. "I know you want Mom and Dad to be happy, that you think they could never accept..."_

"_You don't know a damn thing." Dean had snapped. "You're not the one who's going to lose their family."_

"_Yes I am." Sam told him sadly. "Because I'm not going to watch you lie to yourself for the rest of my life."_

But Sam had been dead wrong. Dean wasn't lying, he was living – big difference. He was going to be a father soon, wasn't that what everybody wanted? What his Mom wanted – to see her grandchildren.

So why did it feel like he was getting in too deep? That bring children into this was just another thing that would make Sam avoid him, or give him those saddened, disappointed looks at family dinners.

Dean knows Castiel looks down on him too, the other man might not say so but Dean got the distinct impression, that night they spent together, that Castiel saw him as the lowest of the low. Hardly fair given that the priest had taken a freaking vow of celibacy, had joined an order that publicly denounced homosexuality.

_But didn't you take a vow_, whispers a part of Dean's brain that he seldom listens to, _didn't you promise to be faithful?_

I promised not to love another person as long as I lived. Dean thinks savagely, and I haven't. I love Lisa, just, sometimes...

_Sometimes I just need it._

It's an excuse that's wearing thin. Very thin.

A week after that sleepless night, Lisa takes a pregnancy test. It's positive. And Dean wonders why that makes him just a little sad, tarnishing his happiness with the thought that he doesn't really deserve this moment, this child. He keeps it to himself. Lisa is ecstatic.

(-*-)

Castiel hears the news from Lisa herself. He's busy watching over choir practice one evening and it is Lisa's turn to array the hymnals for tomorrow's service. He likes Lisa, in an abstract way, she's nice and kind and one of the more tolerant members of the congregation.

_I wonder how she'd take it, knowing that her husband is a raging homosexual? _Castiel ignores the bitter voice, he is above the petty jealousy that it feels, the envy of her easy exposure to dean, day by day, living in his house, sleeping in his bed, whilst Castiel sleeps along. It's not that he wants Dean, or even likes him in any way...

Castiel loses the thread of his internal posturing, forgets what is truth and what is denial. A hazard of living in secrecy as he does, one starts to censor one's own thoughts as if for public consumption.

Lisa comes to stand at his side, watching the rows of white robed choristers singing. It is ethereally beautiful, Castiel likes the uniformity of the arrangement, the way all the boys look the same. Though he has never understood the sexual attracts some strange men ascribe to them. Castiel has never been attracted to boyishness. Even when he was one himself.

"Amazing, aren't they?" Lisa murmurs.

"They are very good." Castiel agrees.

"They must work very hard, you as well."

"That we do." Castiel responds neutrally.

"Do you think..." Lisa begins, and then trails off.

Castiel turns to her politely. Lisa smiles pleasantly, embarrassed.

"I'm pregnant Father." She tells him.

Castiel wonders why he feels like he's been punched in the face and gut simultaneously.

"That's good news." He substitutes for, _Of course you are – stupid, pigheaded man that your husband is. _

"Thank you." Lisa smiles. "This was my, oh so subtle way of asking...would you reserve a place for the christening, before your schedule gets too busy?"

"Of course." Castiel smiles.

_Of course it would have to be _me.


	7. Chapter 7

_By the way – I have a novel out, check out my profile page _

Dean still hasn't forgotten the date.

He had hoped that he would, had placed a great amount of faith in the idea that, since his wife was currently heavily pregnant and his work schedule was so freaking busy, he'd forget exactly what the numbers on the calendar meant.

Wishful thinking.

Dean finds himself on Castiel's doorstep perhaps a little too late to catch the priest on his way out for the night. Still, Dean is hopeful, cursing the traffic that kept him and hoping that Castiel was somehow delayed in leaving. He wonders, briefly, why he doesn't consider going out and finding his own random lay. Dean quickly reassures himself that he can trust Castiel to keep it a secret – that one night with him will last him a year. Dean would in no way admit that he is no longer sure whether Castiel is what keeps him going all year, or whether a year is as long as he can wait, for Castiel.

He knocks on the door and there's a long, long pause before Castiel finally cracks it open.

He looks almost disappointed.

"I thought you weren't coming." Castiel says quietly

"Is that why you're still here?" Dean can't help but ask. The thought that Castiel waited for him is a gratifying one – he's never really needed the sense that any of the guys he sleeps with actually valued him, or thought that he was good in bed. But this is satisfying nonetheless.

Castiel chooses to ignore his comment, supplementing instead, "I thought you'd...decide against it."

"Why would I do that?" Dean retorts, dearly hoping that Castiel won't push the issue.

"You have a wife Dean." Castiel tells him, guilt and resentment clear in his voice. "A wife who's five months pregnant, with your baby."

Dean feels both insulted and chastened. How could Castiel chastise him for this? Dean had neatly compartmentalised Castiel far from his wife and impending child. He would like very much to keep it that way.

"Are you going to let me in, or what?" he says brashly.

Castiel huffs a bitter laugh.

"Don't judge me." Dean hisses. "I'm not the one who stands up and tells everyone on a weekly basis that being gay is a one way ticket to hell."

Castiel glares poisonously at him. "Aren't you just the font of tolerance."

"I don't tell people how to live their lives – just, what's right for them isn't the thing for me, ok?" Dean returns Castiel glower with his own. "And if you don't want me I can go find someone who won't lecture me."

"Then why don't you?" Castiel bites out. "Go find someone who has their own wife at home – you two'll have so much in common."

"Well then you could find yourself another bent priest." Dean sneers. "Or is that how you got like this in the first place."

Castiel's face is thunderous as he reaches out, quick as a striking animal, grabbing Dean's hand from the door frame and pulling him into the house.

With the door slammed at Dean's back Castiel pushes him up against it, one hand grasping Dean's throat painfully tight. He mouth is very close to Dean's ear, so close that Dean feels a whisper of porcelain fine teeth against the lobe.

"At least the only person I'm hurting is myself – you dumb asshole." He spits. "Until you at least, you think you're doing the right thing with Lisa? Depriving her of someone who isn't a lying piece of..."

Dean kicks out at him and Castiel staggers backwards, Dean takes advantage of the priest's momentum, pushing him up against the wall.

"What about all those fallen souls you were preying on, Father?" Dean growls, holding Castiel easily against the plastered wall. "People who could have normal lives – where do they go once you've used them?"

Dean's expecting a venomous retort, but Castiel goes limp between him and the wall, his eyes closing and a rictus of pain seizing his features.

When Dean kisses him, it's purely so he doesn't have to see the agonised guilt in the priest's face.

Castiel kisses back with a ferocity that tells of a need to blot out the insult thrown at his feet. The ugly, true things Dean has said of him. There's anger there too, he has not love for the man who has shown him this about himself. No appreciation for the enlightenment.

They stagger blindly along the corridor, each clinging to the other, their mouths meeting with more savagery than sensuality. One of Castiel's hands knots itself in Dean's hair, his small, sharp teeth pulling on Dean's lower lip. Dean pushes against him, pressing their bodies together, urging Castiel backwards until his lower back strikes a solid object – the kitchen table.

Dean turns him, pushes the other man face forwards over the wooden surface. Castiel's hands strike the table, curling into fists on the slick wood. Dean unfastens and lowers Castiel's pants and underwear briskly, sparing no finesse for the task.

"Where's your lube?"

Castiel struggles to remember, even to think. "Uh...bathroom...back of the space, under the sink."

Dean leaves him spread out and finds the lube at the back of the cupboard under the sink, behind containers of cleaning powder, spare towels and washcloths. There are condoms there too, a small packet of them, and Dean takes those as well. He goes back the kitchen, seeing Castiel still bent over, bare to the room, head resting miserably on the table. But if there's hate it's clear that Castiel is aiming it at himself, that he's still ready to do whatever it is that Dean wants, this time.

The prep is joyless, the least romantic Dean has ever been in prepping a partner. Castiel thrusts forwards and leans heavier on the table with a gasp when Dean stretches him wide, stroking inside of him.

Slicked up and wearing the thin sheaf of borrowed latex, Dean pushes into Castiel, relishing the tightness, the feeling unique to being this way, with a man. The sinewy perfection of the pale back laid out before him, Castiel's shoulder blades and muscles flexing and stretching as he shifts on the table. The priest's lying with his head on one side, eye closed and lips parted a little, low sounds of pleasure forming breathlessly as Dean establishes his rhythm, looking down to where his flesh meets Castiel's, the pale halo of the rubber showing the puffy rim of him even more pink and stretched. Dean cradles the slight softness of Castiel's hips in his hands, feeling the bone underneath press into his fingers. As he goes, moving a little faster, Castiel's contribution is a slight buck backwards and a sharp 'hunh' of breath at each thrust. The lack of involvement needles Dean, scratching a sore spot he didn't know he had.

"If you're just going to lie there..." Dean grouses.

"...then you might as well be with Lisa?" Castiel snaps, glaring at him as best he can from his place, prone on the table.

Dean's hand has slapped hard against the barely-there curve of Castiel's ass before he can think. Castiel gasps, inner muscles snapping tight around Dean and making his legs shake. Dean digs his fingers into the small amount of flesh on Castiel's ass, squeezing hard.

"Shut up." He mutters breathlessly.

And Castiel does.

For about twelve seconds.

"Do you feel like a proper man..." Castiel rasps. "When you're with her? Do you feel like you're..." he pants as Dean slams home again. "A proper man?"

Dean strikes his ass again and Castiel makes a strangled sound, quivering and clenching tight. Castiel's hand flies out, reaching around and gripping Dean's ass tightly, keeping him close as he thrusts backwards, shaking and coming over the open front of his pants and the glossy surface of the table.

Dean presses his hand into Castiel's flat stomach, twisting his shirt in his fingers and forcing his hips upwards, thrusting quick and deep. Castiel's hand on the table slips in a trail of come, and he sprawls on the silky wood, whimpers as Dean pushes hard against his prostate, shivering and twitching at the ferocious stimulation. When Dean pulls out of him without coming, leaving Castiel bent over and quaking, it takes him a minute to register the hands on his shoulders, the grunt Dean gives as he rolls him onto his back, leaving Castiel with thick come spreading under him, legs up around Dean's waist, his slacks dangling inelegantly from one ankle.

He groans as Dean slides inside of him again, fingers clawing on the table and thighs shaking as Dean thrusts harder, breath coming in short gasps as he stumbles closer to his orgasm.

Another brush against his prostate, followed by a prolonged assault, makes Castiel cry out, and Dean doubles the pressure on him, one hand abandoning its hold on Castiel's leg to palm his softening dick roughly. Castiel lets out a stream of breathless expletives, most of which even he can't identify; shuddering and bucking as Dean slams into him sharply and comes with a long, satisfied, groan.

Getting his breath back, Castiel wriggles uncomfortably on the sticky table.

"What...did you turn me over...for...?" he pants.

Like hell is Dean going to admit that he wanted to see Castiel's face.

"Made a change." He shrugs, pulling out and shedding the condom, going to throw it in Castiel's waste bin. He realises belatedly that he's still clothed, and hope that he hasn't made a mess of his suit pants and shirt.

Without Dean holding his legs up, Castiel winces, struggling up from the table.

"So...we're done?" He asks, easing the crick in his back.

"Unless you wanted..." Dean feels a little awkward now that he's spent. "Look, if there's something you want to do..."

Castiel instantly looks embarrassed.

"It's not like you're going to shock me." Dean grouses. "Besides...I might not even stay, after your little...performance."

"Seemed like you enjoyed being told off." Castiel retorts.

"Least I don't give it up for a couple of slaps on the ass." Dean responds indignantly.

"How do you know you wouldn't?" Castiel asks.

Dean isn't even going to dignify that with an answer. "What was it you wanted tonight then?"

Castiel shakes his head. "It doesn't matter." He kicks his ankle free of his pants.

"Seriously, tell me." Dean says, "Or you'll have to wait a whole other year."

Castiel seems to take that into consideration, frowning sadly.

"In my bedroom..." he starts, and then pauses.

"There's a..." Dean guesses.

"No." Castiel says quickly. "Just...in my bedroom."

Dean takes a few seconds, but he finally gets it.

"You've never done it in a bed?" He queries.

Castiel flushes hotly. "I've never had occasion...and it's never been exactly convenient."

"So...you just want to do it in bed?" Dean considers the implications for a moment. "Like...slow and all...sweet?" He moves a little closer, Castiel's obvious embarrassment intriguing him. "You want to make love to me?" He asks quietly, a mocking tone making his words pointed.

"Shut up." Castiel says automatically. "...but...yes...I suppose."

Dean pauses, then pulls his shirt off over his head and drops it over a chair. He holds out a hand to Castiel, which the other man takes, warily.

"Come on then." Dean murmurs, tugging him away from the sullied table and down the halls to the bedroom.


	8. Chapter 8

Dean blinks awake and stretches with a long breath, curling back into the shallow hollow of the cotton clad mattress and the puffy duvet over him. It's warm, just a little more than is comforting, the warmth of a bed fully occupied, rather than one heated by lonely limbs. He turns his head into the pillow, finding it less fabric softness and more warm resilience. With his eyes closed Dean allows himself to rest peaceably on the edge of sleep, knowing that he's right where he should be, asleep beside his wife.

Slowly, pieces of information reach his brain. His back hurts a little, like he's been re-tiling the kitchen all over again, he's naked, he can feel the sheets sliding over him as he shifts slightly. Dean can smell tangy deodorant, sharp and spicy, rather than soft and floral. The hot pillow under his check has a heartbeat.

Dean flinches fully awake and pushes the duvet off of his face, he sits up, his cheek slightly damp from the sweat formed between it and Castiel's chest.

Because it is Castiel in the bed beside him.

His eyes are closed, peaceful fringes of dark lashes on his cheeks, breath coming steadily, he moves a little at Dean's withdrawal, shifting, searching slightly and then relaxing with a soft frown.

Dean slides out of bed and shuffles, naked, over the carpet towards the kitchen. His clothing is still there, cold and empty. He takes kitchen paper from a roll on the counter, damps it carefully and mops his stomach clean. He wads the paper and throws it into the trash, picks up his clothes and puts them on.

He doesn't relax until he's a block away, climbing into his car.

He sags behind the wheel, feeling abruptly sick and anxious. He hadn't meant to fall asleep, hadn't meant to stay at all. He'd taken Castiel into his bedroom, to the single-and-a-half sized bed with it's lonely single pillow, and they'd both gotten suddenly awkward. Dean had taken Castiel's hips, turned him round and pushed him gently onto the bed. From there they'd gotten to kissing, face to face, Dean lying between Castiel's parted legs. The actual sex had taken a long time, at first Dean had been frustrated by the slow pace, especially given the delicious sounds Castiel made when he pushed inside of him that second time, stretching him all over again. But after a while...the slowness, the soft writhing, upward motion of Castiel's body had become almost hypnotic. The way they moved together, and breathed into each other, had felt better even than the first time he'd been with Castiel.

The other man had squeezed him tight with his thighs, one hand cupping his face gently, and for the first time he'd looked almost...peaceful, even full and mounted and whimpering with pleasure, he had seemed completely committed to the act, and not warring with himself.

That peace had remained once they'd both once Dean had fetched up inside of him, and Castiel had come himself, wriggling and thrashing his head on the single pillow as his veins burnt white hot and his insides shuddered. They'd shifted, Dean lying his head down against Castiel's chest in exhaustion, the other man had petted his back gently, Dean had watched as Castiel fell asleep.

He had meant to leave, to leave then, as soon as the other man had faded into unconsciousness...only, he had been so tired, more than that, so comfortable, comforted, that he had drifted off to the shallow rise and fall of the other man's chest.

Sitting in the dark interior of his car, Dean knew that this could not happen again.

He had used Castiel to gratify the need in him, to get rid of the urge that Lisa could not ever know of, let alone address. But now...

Dean would not admit it in so many words, but he knew for certain that things had changed.

What had changed were not his feelings (though they had shifted – Dean would never admit that it was so) but he knew for certain that his desires had changed.

Before he had been satisfied with sex, simple and distilled down to its brutal, almost animal nature. He had thought Castiel felt the same. But it was clear that Castiel wanted more, and, having experienced the intensity of the other man's gaze – the way Castiel had looked at him, like he was the most important thing, the most precious gift he'd been given, that he knew he could never keep...Dean could not say that he didn't want to experience that again.

He couldn't do that to Lisa, desire Castiel's adoration over her love. And their child...Dean laid his forehead against the wheel, he was about to be a father, he would have to be responsible, his family had to be the most important thing. Whatever this confused thing with Castiel was, it had to stop.

Because Dean could no longer believe that it meant nothing.

He could no longer excuse it as something he _needed._

It was something he wanted.

And he honestly didn't know what that would mean for him.

(-*-)

Castiel wakes with a start to the sharp blare of his alarm.

His arm is stretched out over the mattress, reaching to touch something long gone.

He looks along its pale length, smelling the unfamiliar clove fragrance of expensive aftershave on his skin. His ass is sore, one cheek bruised, and his lips dry and swollen from biting kisses, then the smooth, wet mouthed laving as they'd lain right here. Castiel moves closer to the cold part of the bed, inhaling the sheet lightly and lying there a while.

He wonders what it would be like to wake up next to somebody.

Finds he can't quite imagine it.

The alarm continues to beep shrilly.

He pulls the duvet over his head, lies in the dark, safe and breathing in the scent of their combined soaps and the crisp odour of semen and sweat.

Later, when he finally gets out of bed, showers away the evidence and dresses, he finds that this encounter was not so neat as the last.

There is semen on his breakfast table, a hand print in it that must be his own, some lube that must have escaped him when Dean turned him over. He cleans it up carefully, puts the cloth to one side to dry, later he'll burn it in the fireplace, reducing it to a smoky skeleton of fibres. He drags the sheets off of the bed, puts them in the machine and cracks it to the hottest wash, uses far too much soap.

With clean sheets on the bed he goes about his business as usual, sitting carefully on the couch so as not to aggravate the ache in his backside, reading a book of translated St. Augustine.

That night he dresses for bed and climbs under the clean sheets, a cup of fruit tea on the bedside table, a novel resting next to it. An old man's lonely bed. All he needs are the blue and white striped pyjamas, a set of bifocals. One day he'll be old, and nothing will have changed.

He pushes back the sheets after a while, the tea and the blankets making him too warm.

There is a crinkled, dark blond hair on the under sheet.

Castiel looks at it, defiant reminder that it is.

He'd made love in this bed.

He brushes the hair aside, replaces the sheets over himself, and turns out the light.

Somewhere Dean is in bed with his wife. Somewhere Dean has a life and a love all his own.

Castiel has a cold bed and a hair shed from another man's skin.

A hair not even missed by its owner.

(-*-)

Dean paints the nursery in 'Custard' a far better colour than 'Canary'. It will have to be painted again once the baby is born, when they know it's sex and bring it home to see its newly decorated home.

Lisa hangs pictures of Winnie the pooh, her hair held out of the way by a scrunchee, a pair of overalls straining to contain her rounded stomach. She has yellow paint on one sleeve, dried on. They paint the crib white and hang a mobile of bees over it.

That night, Lisa rubs lotion into her risen stomach, in the aid of preventing stretch marks. Safely sheathed in a short cotton nightdress she climbs into bed beside her husband, Dean rubs the bump that holds their child, feeling her navel, like a puppies nose under his hand. It kicks against him inquisitively, and Lisa smiles to herself.

"He must like you."

"We don't know if it's a boy." Dean murmurs into her hair.

"I have a feeling." She protests.

"Ok then." He sighs. "I bow to the feeling."

She nudges him, he tickles her ribs.

When they curl up to sleep, Lisa inhales his throat sleepily.

"By the way, I loved the new aftershave...subtle..." she yawns, "The cloves were making me feel a little sick."

Dean freezes.

Lisa pats his arm.

"It's a pregnancy thing – sorry."

He holds on to her gently.

"It's ok." He murmurs.

"Mmm..." Lisa stretches, trying to get comfortable. "You did a great job today, with the nursery."

"Right back at you."

"Especially with the late night." She strokes his back. "Don't work too hard, kay?"

"I'll try." Dean promises. Rubbing her back as she turns onto her side. "I promise."


	9. Chapter 9

"Do you reject Satan?"

Castiel looks at Dean, blue eyes boring into him, dark robe and white soutane making him look even sharper than Dean remembers, a creature of black and white, inhuman and otherworldly.

"I do." Dean says, along with Lisa in her pale yellow dress, Lisa's sister Rachel and Dean's cousin Adam. Sam had wordlessly managed to avoid the duty of godfather, he sat with Dean's parents in the front pew.

"And all his works?" Castiel asks.

"I do." The four of them repeat, and Dean feels sweat gather inside the collar of his new shirt. He knows that these are just the words of the catholic ritual of baptism, they are not a personal indictment of him in front of his entire family, by the man who knows him to be a fraud. Still, Castiel's eyes burn with a kind of St. Elmo's fire, the brilliant passion of one in their element. There's anger in that passion, but also a kind of...hurt, which Dean can't quite understand.

"And all his empty promises?" The set to the priest's face tells of an implication beneath his words. It is not the Devil he's speaking of.

Dean meets his eyes defiantly.

"I do."

Castiel holds the newly baptised Benjamin John Winchester in his arms. The tuft of dark hair at his head is damp from the holy water, his white smock showing his little pink arms and legs waving irritably as his face puckers, preparing to cry. Castiel rocks the small bundle almost imperceptibly and Ben stills.

The whole affair reminds Dean of their wedding, right down to the flowers and cake. The only difference is his Mom being in a wheelchair, her face thin and pale under her neat hat. Chemo has not treated her delicately, and Dean feels a small stab of sadness even as she smiles at him.

Lisa smiles at Castiel and offers him a piece of cake, which Castiel takes like a movie prop, thankfully, but with no intention of eating it.

"Thank you for the beautiful service Father." She says, still managing to look pretty despite the tiredness of a new mother. She has Ben in a pale blue sling, newly redressed for the party in a blue set of footie pyjamas, complete with bunny ears.

"It was my pleasure." Castiel assures her.

"Would you like to hold him?" Lisa offers him the baby, used to the friendliness of her own family priest.

Castiel looks at Dean, who widens his eyes at the possibly revealing glance, nodding slightly.

Castiel takes the baby from Lisa gently, cradling him in his arms and looking down at the small bundle of blue fabric. Ben blinks his green eyes open and looks up at him, the uniquely befuddled expression of the very young clouding his features.

"He's lovely." Castiel says, touching one finger to Ben's nose lightly, the baby gurgles happily and Castiel smiles.

Dean feels a weird mix of affection and disquiet that makes him simultaneously want to take Ben from Castiel's arms, and distract Lisa so that he and Castiel can stay like this a while.

Castiel hands the baby back to Lisa carefully. The priest ducks his head politely.

"Excuse me." He murmurs, and makes his way through the crowd to the tiny kitchenette at the rear of the church.

Dean stands beside his wife, looking down at his son and smiling with genuine pleasure. His parents were just as proud now as they had been on the day of his wedding. Even Sam raised a half smile along with his glass of champagne, perhaps the two years of successful marriage, as well as the presence of a perfect baby boy, had allied his fears somewhat.

Now it was Dean who was uncertain.

"Hey...Lis? I'm just going to go get some coffee from the kitchen." He murmurs.

"You're an addict." She admonishes gently.

He kisses her on the cheek, unable to crack a joke in return.

Dean makes his way through to the back of the church, going into the kitchen quietly and closing the door behind him. There's a single window over the sink in the tiny room, and Castiel is looking out of it, his hands resting on the edge of the metal trough.

(-*-)

Castiel looks out over the parking lot, the ivy covered fence that sagged over the damp, gravel studded earth. Birds flitted through the gnarled trees that overhung the corner of the lot. He blinks, feeling a wave of sorrow swell in his chest, a prickling in his eyes. He sniffs, and his eyes blur.

He curses himself, not now, any time but now, in the middle of the occasion. Still, the sense of disconnection growls, the yawning hole of loneliness that opened up whenever he thought of Dean and Lisa. But now it had a new ache, a new sense of emptiness.

Children. He was never going to have children.

And it had never mattered, never concerned him before. But the baby, _their baby _was so perfect. Ben. A tiny human being, an amazing accomplishment. One that would never be his.

And God, that hurt worse than anything else he had ever experienced. Worse than the lack of a lover, the lack of anyone else in his life – the perfect, unconditional love he would never share, with a child he could never have.

"Castiel?"

Castiel hardens his quavering jaw.

"Go back to your party, Dean."

"Are you ok?" Dean asks, awkwardly.

Castiel closes his eyes.

"I'm fine." He says stiffly.

"Yeah...I'm not buying that."

Castiel senses him moving closer, and his retort comes out sharper than he intended.

"Even if I wasn't, it would hardly be your problem would it?" He pauses, feeling the sharp buzz of his angry words in the air. "Especially not today." He adds, softly.

"You're mad at me." Dean guesses.

"How can I be?" Castiel turns round and looks at him, fully in control of himself again. "I don't even know you."

"Is this because..." Dean looks sharply at the door. He lowers his voice guiltily. "...about last time..."

"We had sex, you left...that's about average isn't it?" Castiel says tersely.

Dean sighs.

"I didn't mean to...I didn't mean to leave while you were out."

"Yes you did." Castiel cuts him off. "And I shouldn't have expected any different."

Dean feels a stab of irritation.

"Well what did you expect from me? It's not like this is..."

"Love?" Castiel raises an eyebrow. "Quite."

"It's just...it's not is it?" Dean mutters. "It's just...convenient."

"Not right now it's not." Castiel says bitterly.

"And..." Dean looks at the priest's hands rather than his face. "It's not going to happen again...I can't, not with Ben..."

"Keeping the home fires burning, how noble." Castiel sighs.

Dean grits his teeth in anger.

"Look, if you want someone to love you, can't you just..."

"Don't lecture me." Castiel snaps. "Don't presume that you..." Castiel cuts himself off sharply. "Hard as it might be for you to understand, right now I would settle simply for being liked, never mind love, sex, having someone decorative to take to bed...I would settle , I would gladly call it a gift, if I had someone to be with, to share my days with." Castiel meets Dean's eyes without a shadow self pity. "You have Lisa, you have a son who will love you more than anyone else ever could...and I have nothing." Castiel bites the inside of his lip. "I will always have nothing, and it would really help my situation to not have you and your perfect family right in front of me." He gestures at the door. "So...if you'll continue with your life...I'll get on with what's left of mine."

Dean can't think of a thing to say, of a single comfort, or even a reason why it would be his place to comfort Castiel.

But, as he turns and leaves the priest alone, two things do occur to him.

The first is that he's just gotten what he wanted – both he and Castiel are free of each other.

The second is that the priest had been crying.

And that bothers him more than any of the harsh words Castiel had aimed his way.


	10. Chapter 10

Dean's mother goes into hospital three months after the christening.

They are three interminable months, during which Dean does little else aside from work, come home and help out with three am feedings, changing the baby and trying to keep the house below apocalyptic levels of mess. Given the sudden influx of chores related to the baby, plus caring for Ben himself, Dean finds his gym regime becomes nonexistent, and more often than not there is take out or frozen pizza for dinner, before he and Lisa fall into bed for a few hours of precious sleep.

The change to his life is not one that he resents, having Ben burbling away in his crib or chewing the ear of his favourite bear is sweet enough to chase away most of his tiredness and irritability. He and Lisa present a united front to both mess and childrearing, and avoid fighting with each other as much as possible.

Still, when Mary is admitted to hospital, Dean finds himself struggling to cope. When he first visits her, she seems only weak and sickly, but as the weeks roll on and her condition worsens, dread settles like a fine grey film over everything.

Finally, Dean is standing in a hospital room with Sam, Jess, Lisa and his Father, listening to a doctor as he explains that there's nothing they can do. His mother is too weak for more treatments, that would probably do nothing. Now they just wait for her to pass. Mary takes this in with a blink of her pale eyelids, John sits heavily in the chair beside her and takes his wife's hand. Jess, ever the perfect fiancé, puts her arm around Sam's back, squeezing his waist comfortingly. Lisa takes Dean's hand.

They go to get his mom some decent food from her favourite deli, all four of them, Lisa, Sam, Jess and himself. John remains behind, wanting some private time with his wife before he has to face up to his sons and be the strong leader of their family once more. At this point Mary is too sick to appreciate any kind of food, good or bad, but it's something that they can do, and right at that minute Dean needs something he can fix. He expects Sam feels the same way.

Returning with hot soup and bread, they find that John and Mary are not alone. Father Novak is standing by the bed, one hand touching Mary's.

Dean stands stock still in the hallway for a fraction of a second. Castiel looks up and catches his eye through the glass wall, then turns to look down at Mary, continuing with the visit. Sam and Jess go inside, and Dean follows them with Lisa, so that the room is full again.

"Mom..." Sam starts, then falters.

"It's ok, I'm not getting the last rights just yet." She manages a pained smile. "I just wanted...a little reassurance." She pats Castiel's hand. "I hope you don't mind Father."

"It's my duty, and a privilege." Castiel assures her. "I only wish there was more that I could do."

"Say something lovely at my funeral." Mary asks. "Anything that isn't that awful footprints poem." A tear falls from the corner of her eye, and Sam closes his own eyes, holding onto Jess's hand.

Castiel half smiles at Mary, touches her hand consolingly, and presses a looped rosary into her pale fingers with the other.

"I will pray for you." He tells her, sincerely.

She meets his eyes, her own green and unflinching as Dean's.

"Pray for my boys." She asks.

Castiel swallows the guilt he feels.

"Of course." He promises.

Dean can't stand to see anymore, he removes himself from the back of the room and goes into the hallway, breathing heavily through his nose and fighting the impulse to just break down and cry. It's his mom in there, dying, and he can't do a damn thing. Even Castiel is more of a comfort to her than he can be.

Lisa touches his arm.

"Hey..." she says softly. Dean closes his eyes, feeling the gentle, tentative touch. "Your mom's comfortable, I'm sure they'll do everything they can to make this..." She sighs. "I'm so sorry Dean."

The thing is, nothing she can say will make this any better, and Dean can't listen to this, can't dissolve under the kind, meaningless words.

"I just need a minute." He mutters, and takes off down the hallway, leaving Lisa by the door to his mother's hospital room.

Dean walks blindly through the hallways, until he finds a janitors closet, without even thinking about it, he opens the door, steps inside, and shuts himself into the dark space. The noises of the hospital are dimmed by the veneer of the door, even the scent is overcome by lemon disinfectant. The sense of helpless claustrophobia subsides slightly, and Dean breathes easier.

Why is he always so fucking helpless? Why is it always life that runs away from him, like a pack of sled dogs he can't control.

The door at his back opens, a snatch of light and chatter intrudes on his privacy, and then there is a body beside his in the cramped, dark space.

"Dean?"

Dean pushes Castiel against the wall, has his arms around him before he can fully understand the impulse. Castiel holds him back tentatively, hands patting his back.

"I know this is..."

"Shut up." Dean buries his face against Castiel's neck, inhaling the scent of cotton, white soap and sweat. "Please just...shut up." His breathing is shaky, and he can feel tears coming to the surface. Castiel rubs his back in circles, rests his cheek on the top of Dean's stooped head. Dean's shoulders shake and he comes apart, body contracting in sobs, eyes welling up and over, tears soaking the black cloth of Castiel's shirt.

Castiel rubs his back, rocks him almost imperceptibly, shushing under his breath. Dean grips him so tightly that his fingers grow numb. After a while, the tears stop coming and Dean goes still, listening to the slightly quickened beat of Castiel's heart. Castiel strokes Dean's hair gently, and Dean hears him inhale softly, knows that Cas is smelling him, finds that he doesn't mind. Instead, Dean moves his head up, mouth finding Castiel's blindly, and they kiss, deepening it fast and desperately.

They have been so lonely, three months apart and needy, Dean hadn't even noticed, had barely thought of it. Only of course, he had thought of Castiel all the time, he just hadn't admitted to it.

Castiel touches him hesitantly, but Dean's hands shove up under the other man's clothes, pulling his shirt out of his pants and touching the smooth skin of his waist and dragging his nails over the swell of Castiel's hip. His own body is larger than it was three months ago, fluctuating weight gain in force again, but he's still strong, and he uses that strength to manhandle Castiel desperately, pulling him closer and pushing his knee between his thighs and feeling the priest shiver, rubbing against him.

Someone shouts in the hallway outside, interrupting their square of darkness, where the only sounds had been heavy breathing, the rasp of suit pants on denim. Castiel pulls away slightly.

"Not here." He strokes Dean's face, finger tips lingering on his puffy, reddened eyes. "Dean...I'm so sorry about your mother..."

"Can I come see you, tonight?" Dean interrupts, he needs to feel it again, the sensation of being held by someone as strong as himself, of being able to vent his frustration and helplessness on a wiry form. And Castiel understands, or at least, it feels like he does.

"Of course you can." Castiel leans their foreheads together. "Of course you can." He whispers again.

"I want you." Dean murmurs, hands rubbing the backs of Castiel's thighs. There's an edge of desperation to his desire. "I need you so much."

"I'll be there." Castiel assures him, responding to the pressure, rubbing up against Dean eagerly. "It's ok. I'll be there."

They break apart, and Castiel leaves first, ducking out and heading away before Dean leaves the closet and goes back to the hospital room. He feels guilty, so very, very guilty, but there's also the urge to seek comfort wherever he can find it, and Castiel is the only one who he can go to. Lisa's comforting speeches, her gentle touches, can't come close to touching the sick dread in him.

So while his mother is dying in hospital, Dean tells Lisa he needs to go for a run.

It isn't even a lie.

He runs all the way to Castiel.


	11. Chapter 11

_I'm going to start mentioning it again I have a novel out – check it out on my profile page _

Castiel opens the door to Dean, closes it on the world and accepts Dean's touches like the miracle they are. Unexpected, undeserved, but _there_. He has already drawn the window shades, and made sure that the back door is locked, as is the front once Dean is inside.

Dean kisses him, the same desperation from earlier clear in every touch. Castiel kisses back, allows himself to be pushed up against the wall and explored blindly by Dean's strong fingers, the insistent hot pressure of his palms. Castiel feels for the first time a sense that he is responsible for Dean, not merely one of two participants selfishly taking their own pleasure, but an individual offering something up to another in good faith.

He's still surprised when Dean resists his efforts to tackle the zipper on his jeans, taking his hand instead and leading Castiel towards the bedroom. Castiel stays frozen by the wall, and Dean's steps falter uncertainly, but he keeps hold of Castiel's fingers.

"I thought...after last time..." Dean looks awkward once more, as reluctant as he had been the last time, but he also seems tired and so bare of protective bluster that Castiel feels the rearing of a worrying caring impulse.

"I just thought you might like it...this way." Dean finishes.

Castiel's limp hand shifts, holding onto Dean's in return.

Dean takes Castiel into his own bedroom, and Castiel feels like a stranger to it.

They stand at the foot of the bed and kiss, sharp intakes of breath and the needy noises neither of them will admit to making melding with the obscene wet slide of tongues and lips, deeper groans and the rake of nails on fabric. Castiel's stomach churns, his legs feel weak, belly full of heat and twisting tension. Dean is more present than he has ever been, unable to turn off his awareness of who he is with and what it is that he's doing, which only makes him kiss harder, touch more, trying to recapture the anonymous high.

Every sound is impossibly loud in the silence, the sheets rustle as they each sit and then scoot up the bed, lying down and kissing again, both feeling as if they've been left without a script, lacking the frantic energy that they'd expected.

They take their own clothes off, and still it feels impossibly intimate, right, but wrong somehow. Unexpected and not a little frightening. For the first time Dean is self conscious, not about his body but about his nakedness. Castiel feels the same, and is the first to get under the top sheet, mercifully allowing Dean to do the same.

They touch and each brush of contact is like another shivering mass of molten heat rising to the surface. Castiel has never moaned like this at a single touch, but his skin feels over sensitive, crying out for fully body contact and shying from it at once, a knot tying in his gut that aches and yet demands touch. Their mouths meet with no finesse, abandoning the form of kissing and tackling the underlying hunger.

Dean was expecting to want to get inside of Castiel, take all of his helpless anger out on a willing, strong body. But when it comes to the crucial turning point, he can't do it, and he freezes just as he's about to shift on top of the other man. Castiel looks up at him, their eyes meeting and filling them both with awkwardness. Dean just shakes his head.

Castiel wets his swollen lips, two long fingers reaching up to push some of Dean's hair away from his eye. He strokes Dean's face as an afterthought, leaning up a little and feeling relieved and anxious when Dean takes his cue and lies down.

Dean lies on his side, facing away, but his hand reaches back to tug Castiel down behind him. The dark haired man lies down, breathing impossibly loud in the silence, sheets crinkling and the box spring crumpling with their shared weight.

"Dean." Castiel whispers against the back of his neck. He touches Dean's hip and feels him press back against him, telling him wordlessly to continue, to get on with it. He breathes in against Dean's skin, the back of his neck is tanned and freckled, a sliver exposed to the sun by his shirt collars. He kisses it, finds this unsatisfactory, licks it lightly instead. It tastes of the fresh sweat gathering there. Under the sheets they're throwing off a furnace of heat.

"It's on your side." Castiel tells him.

Dean raises an arm, reaching for the top drawer by the side of the single bed. The same bottle of lube, same packet of condoms. He passes them behind him and buries his face as far as possible into the pillow.

Castiel leans up on his elbow, strokes the side of Dean's tense neck.

"Can we just..." Dean reaches back and runs his fingers over Castiel's cock. "Please?"

Castiel lies more comfortably and snaps open the lube, using it to start the process of stretching Dean's open, being gentler than he is usually, even with himself. Dean relaxes all at once and takes two fingers quickly, breath hitching as Castiel kisses the side of his neck, the back of it and the top of his spine, the sensation of Dean clenching greedily around his fingers crumbling his shaky patience.

Dean's head thrashes backwards on the pillow as Castiel finally pushes into him, lifting Dean's leg slightly to find the right angle. Dean growls behind his teeth pushing backwards until they're fully joined. Castiel buries his face against the back of Dean's neck, feeling the warm, sweating skin and his own breath running over it.

Lying like this Castiel can touch more of Dean than if they were face to face, his chest stays firmly against Dean's back, one arm bent next to where Dean's brown hair is spiked over the pillow, the other holding Dean's leg up. Dean is limp and unresisting, each thrust rolls him slightly onto his stomach, face pushing into the pillow, he moans, long and low – a Sunday morning yawn. Castiel finds that the position prohibits deep thrusts, but Dean is tighter this way, and the sensation leaves him wrung out, clinging to the other man's back as his hips seek out more of the sensation fo grasping heat.

Castiel positions Dean's leg, keeping it propped up so that his hand can move to Dean's leaking erection, resting as it is against his stomach. When he starts to stroke, Dean's hand comes up to cover his own, until they're stroking together, and another coil of raging heat sparks up in Castiel's belly. Dean's head shifts on the pillow, resting in the crook of Castiel's elbow. Castiel thrusts, quick and shallow, sinking a little deeper as Dean moves to allow him. The first touch to his prostate makes Dean hiss, the second creates a long, low moan. Castiel keeps up the position, despite the ticking muscle in his thigh, the ache in his lower back. Dean can't really push back against him, but groans soft encouragement, his hand stroking the back of Castiel's as he in turn strokes Dean's cock.

Castiel leans up, coming as deeply inside of Dean as he can, hovering awkwardly over his body in a single spasm of pleasure. Dean whimpers as Castiel pulls out, discarding the sullied latex and coaxing Dean to roll over and face him. With their foreheads pressed together, one of Castiel's hands on Dean's cock and the other working slick fingers into him, reaching for the place inside of him that makes Dean's body loosen and grow hotter with each touch.

Dean shakes and spasms, inner walls grasping at Castiel's fingers as he comes thickly across their stomachs. Dean takes a gasp of air, but rather than rolling away from the hot body beside him, he burrows closer, scrunching up against Castiel's chest.

Castiel excepts the silent thanks with grace, putting his arms around Dean and holding him as close as possible, feeling him shake.


	12. Chapter 12

_As always you can follow me on twitter as JollySnidge, and you can buy my novel from amazon! Check out my profile page for a link _

When Dean wakes up, he nudges Castiel awake and whispers that he's going to have a shower. Castiel blinks at him for a moment in the dark, then nods and lies back down, watching Dean pad away, naked, to the bathroom.

On his way, Dean checks the time on a clock face as blank and disapproving as the moon outside. He's been with Castiel for a little over three hours. He'd told Lisa that he might stop by Sam's after his run, so he isn't exactly worried about the time. What he does feel, as he shifts his aching body into the shower stall, is an awkward shame so acute that it makes him curl his arms around himself.

In the last three hours he has been thoroughly taken apart, and it had felt...God, so good, to have someone else do that for him, to know that they'd put him back when they were done touching all the sore spots that he nursed minute to minute, hour to hour. His mother's illness. Sam's distance. The way Ben trusts him so much...not knowing what a fraud he is.

Only now there's a part of Castiel mixed in with him, and Dean can feel how important the other man is to him now. Hell, how important he's been for a while.

And he isn't sure whether he's ashamed that he's washing off to go back to Lisa, to lie to her, again.

Or because he's creeping out of the bed of the man who's still under his skin, wrapped close and loving him in spite of all the shit and spite he's thrown his way.

Dean leans his forehead against the shower tile, feeling the water run down his back.

At what point did he let this happen? When did he decide to weaken himself and let his whole life slide away from under him?

He knows the answer.

Every time he went to Castiel. Every time he went with any man. Each time he'd lied, to himself, his parents, Lisa...

Each tiny choice had made him weaker, and now he didn't know what to do, or even who he was anymore.

Castiel taps on the shower door.

Dean jerks around and starts at the sight of Castiel, a sheet wrapped around him, standing in the bathroom. He opens the door, letting steam wash out into the room.

"You've been in there for a while." Castile tells him softly.

"Sorry." Dean mutters, but he doesn't move.

Castiel looks at the floor. "It just...felt really weird to be lying there, listening to you leave."

Looking at the other man, who shows all the things that Dean is feeling from what they've just done. Shock, fear, uncertainty...and the way Castiel is looking at him, like he's made of gold.

What's when Dean makes his choice. And it hurts, like digging his own fingers into his chest and pulling on his heart, but he knows that this has to happen now, before he hurts Lisa any more.

Dean puts his hand out and takes Castiel's, pulling the other man into the shower. The sheet drops to the floor, and Dean drops to his knees.

(-*-)

On the way home, walking towards his and Lisa's house with a lead weight in his gut, Dean's phone starts to ring. He fishes it out of his jeans pocket, wondering for a second why Lisa hadn't mentioned the fact that he'd gone running in them in the first place. He feels a twinge of panic, perhaps she knew. But then logic reasserts itself and he figures that she'd just been worried about him, maybe put his absentmindedness down to stress, or grief.

He answers the phone.

"Where the hell are you Dean?"

"Sam?"

"Yes, it's me." Sam sighs. "What the hell are you doing? Where are you?"

"I'm on my way home." Dean mutters, still walking.

"Oh, well that's fine then." Sam says quietly. "Where the fuck have you been for nearly four hours? Because you certainly haven't been with me."

Dean winces. "Lisa called you."

"Yeah, she was worried about you." Sam says pointedly.

"What did you say? When she called." Dean asks.

There's a long pause.

"I lied for you." Sam says quietly.

Dean closes his eyes. "Why?"

"You know, I have no idea." Sam mutters. "I just...she was asking if you'd gotten here ok, and I knew ok? I knew you were off...you just had to be, so it just...came out. I lied. I told her it was fine, you were here, and that you were in the bathroom."

"Thanks." Dean says softly.

"I shouldn't have done it!" Sam blurts.

"I know." Dean rubs a hand over his face. "I'm sorry I put you on the spot."

"What were you doing?" Sam asks quietly.

"You know...I..." Dean clenches a fist and raps it against his thigh as he walks. "I was with someone." He mutters, finally.

"...a guy?"

"...yeah."

There's a long silence.

"You never should have married her." Sam tells him. "I mean it Dean. I meant it then, and after tonight, I certainly do. Maybe it's just this one mistake, but..."

"I've made...a lot of mistakes." Dean mutters. "Sam...I cheated on her, before the wedding, and after...it's the same guy Sam. The last few years...same guy, every time."

"What are you going to do?" Sam asks.

"What I should have done before the wedding." Dean mutters, stalking through the streets towards his home. "The right thing."

Because it is the right thing, Dean knows he can't live like this, that it's unfair to his wife, to his son, to put them second. And it's unfair to Castiel to use him and then leave him alone. In the end, Dean doesn't want to lie anymore.

He just wants to be free of it.

(-*-)

Castiel is surprised by the knock on his front door, it's so early in the morning for a visit. Still, when he opens it, he's shocked to find Sam Winchester on his doorstep.

"Sam? Is it Mary...did something..."

"I'm here about Dean." Sam says, not looking at him.

The bottom drops out of Castiel's stomach, replaced by a floor of ice. "Oh."

"He...he called me, said it'd been a while since he saw you..."

It had in fact been over a month since they'd slept together. Castiel didn't run into Dean much before though, so he hadn't noticed that anything was different. Dean still left things in his mother's hospital room, he had clearly visited...but now Castiel looks at Sam and realises that he must have missed something important.

"He wanted you to know that..." Sam shifts awkwardly from foot to foot. "He's gone."

Castiel shivers, his insides falling onto that polished ice and filling him with needles of pain.

"Gone?"

"Dean and Lisa...they've moved." Sam tells him. "They're...not living in town anymore, and Dean would prefer it if you...uh...if you didn't try to contact him in any way."

Castiel's mouth moves and no sound comes out. It feels like Sam is punching him, like he's spitting the most hateful slurs at him rather than these, polite, cold, sentences.

"And he asked you to tell me this?" He manages, finally.

"No...but I thought you might want to know, something." Sam looks him in the eye, and the pity there burns all the way down to Castiel's mangled soul. "He tried writing you a letter...I don't think it worked out."

"Clearly not." Castiel murmurs.

"He's sorry...that it got this far."

"I'm sure...can you go now, please." Castiel runs the words together, feeling suddenly sick. "Message received."

"He didn't want to hurt you." Sam says quietly. "I think he's...I don't know what he's feeling but...it has to be confusing."

"I know it is."

Castiel turns and goes back into the house, shutting the door at his back. He has the inescapable feeling that he's just lost the best thing he never had. That the miracle he never deserved has been withdrawn, leaving him once again, alone.

(-*-)

Dean helps Lisa to unpack the moving boxes in their new home. A fresh space for a fresh start. The night he'd come home, filled with disgust at himself, with Sam's words still in his mind, he had confessed to Lisa that he couldn't stand living in town anymore. It was a place that reminded him of his mother, of what he was losing, and he couldn't take staying there.

It was the truth, but not nearly the entire truth.

And Lisa, whether she took his words at face value, or whether she knew he'd been keeping something from her, and now wished to escape it and put it behind him...agreed.

Dean had moved to preserve his family, to keep his world aligned as it should be.

He had left because he had to, fearfully and before he could decide to stay.

Before Castiel became someone he'd stay for.

Unpacking ornaments and books, Dean feels cold inside. Because it's already too late to pretend that leaving Castiel was the hardest thing he's ever done.

It's too late to pretend he isn't in love.


	13. Chapter 13

_Wow, everyone hates Dean Just as a little note here, I'd like to say that even though I'm the one writing this, and thinking about how this might make Cas feel...I still don't hate Dean as a character. I mean, stress and grief etc all take their toll, and I guess I believe that the whole situation is confusing enough and painful enough to justify such awful behaviour. _

_Just so you know that I'm not going to leave Dean as 'the bad guy'. _

A letter arrives a few days after Sam's visit.

Castiel can't say that he was expecting it, not after the way Dean just left town, but when he slits open the envelope it really is a note from Dean. The handwriting starts off precise, but gets kind of spindly and frantic the longer the letter goes on. And it does go on, for pages. Castiel holds the bundle of paper and looks at it, hating that it's effecting him so much.

He has asked himself, continuously for the past few days, exactly when he started to care about Dean. How it had come to pass that somewhere between their fighting and fucking and furious denial he had actually started to want him, for himself.

Perhaps it was in the way Dean flared against him, cared to fight with him, rather than restricting them to the realm of easy flirtation and sex. Dean had showed his colours when they had met in the woods, and they had blinded him with their strength.

Even after, even knowing it as wrong, Castiel could not help but want Dean, not just to warm his bed, not just for the sake of his clamouring, selfish body, but because his company soothed the ache of loneliness that Castiel had carried all his life. The feeling of never being seen, not really. Of being lost in a strange place where to show himself was to make himself vulnerable to attack.

Like an foreigner finally hearing their own language, intoxicated by the sensuality and the beauty of it. Dean was like him, and mirrored him. Dean it had seemed at times, fleeting as they were, was made for him.

So what was he for, if not for Dean?

Castiel takes the pages into his bedroom, where his modest bed is made up neatly. Sitting on the folded coverlet he looks down at the top of the letter, where Dean has written his name. No 'To' No 'Dear' but with thick lines like he'd traced the name more than once. Emotion too deep for epithets.

_Castiel,_

_I can't come to see you anymore. I know that this is unfair, and after last time this is the worst time to do it, but I have to. This is my marriage, this is my kids we're talking about._

Castiel closes his eyes, and even before reading the next line he knows what's coming.

_Lisa's pregnant, again, and I have to be there for this baby, Cas. I have to be here when Ben grows up and I have to be able to show him that being there for your family is the right thing to do. And this, whatever this was, it's not a family, it's not a marriage, and I honestly don't think it's doing anything but hurting us both. And no matter what I said, when we were fighting, I never wanted to hurt you. I never wanted to be someone you wanted to keep. But I watched it happen, watched you start to want me, and I didn't stop it._

_I'm so sorry for that. _

_I know that I've been selfish. I still am, this, wanting an easy life, wanting my family to still want me, it's all selfish and I can't tell where that ends and the right thing starts. But the most selfish thing I did was come to you to make myself feel better, to help with what's happening to my Mom. Because I let you in, I let you take care of me and think that it could be the start of something, when I knew it would have to end right there. I think up till then, maybe I just wanted to feel something, to feel so good, and it made you feel good too, and I thought it was ok. _

_And I couldn't stop._

_Cas, I couldn't stop wanting you, and I can't, want that. Not now, not with my Mom in hospital and the baby coming. I have to be there. And I know, ok? I know what kind of man I am, not a very good one for a start, not a smart one or a selfless one. But it's my job to be with them, and I'm so sorry I couldn't tell you to your face. When I thought of doing it I knew I wouldn't be able to. _

_I have no idea what would have happened if I'd tried, but it wouldn't have gone right, for either of us._

_Maybe I'm just a huge fucking coward._

_Hell, there's no maybe about it._

_I'm an asshole. You were right about me. I'm a failure, and I'm guilty as sin and I can't take it anymore._

_But you, I don't know why you want me, why you'd risk everything for a cheating sonofabitch like me, but you don't have to. You have to know I would never tell anyone, aside from my brother, I had to confess to someone. Do you understand that? I hope you do. But, I would never endanger you, I jsut want you to have your life, and to realise that I'm not worth a second more of your time._

_Cas, you gave me so much and I don't know what to do with it. I don't think anyone has ever done close to what you've done for me. I don't know what it means, or even how to stop it. But I can't think about that. I can't care about it. _

_I can't care about you, because it makes this so much harder._

Castiel reads on and on, feeling Dean's emotions shift like currents in a deep and deceptively placid ocean. Dean had always seemed more solid than he was, like he had full command of himself and his thoughts, whereas Castiel was always trying to work himself out; the priest who screwed men, the orphan with daddy issues, the childless man, the cold man - still surprised by all the love he had to give out.

This is the life he chose, the lie. With no parents to pressure him, he had found his own way from foster home to foster home, and finally, alone at eighteen, he had followed the only father he'd ever known, heavenly and unreachable – right into the arms of the priest hood. They'd become his brothers, and God his father, those he bestowed charity on and cared for became his children.

But he had no love chosen for himself. No wife to go with into the wilderness, with whom to build his own family, and as a priest he had believed he had no need of one.

But still there was an empty chair at his side, the seat for a lover, a soul who had chosen him, had decided that he was worthy of love.

And in finding out exactly what he wanted to fill that space, he had lost an entire family. Lost the love of God, his brethren, his flock – all without them knowing. But Castiel had known, and keeping silent only rewarded him with a facsimile of love. A forgery for the fraud he was.

And so he'd made a devils bargain with himself. He'd be a good son of God, do his duty and his job despite the knowledge that he could never truly be loved by Him, or his fellow priests, and in return, one night a year like the pagan souls wreaking havoc on the godly, he would find someone like himself, and he would be loved to his core, to the black heart of him.

And Dean, Dean Dean Dean, had given him more than he ever deserved. But he had been greedy, wanted more than his one night, and now he was being punished, he was sure of it.

He crumples the pages in his hands, body curling up over them and head dipping down, a shuddering gasp torn from his mouth.

His fingers go up to the slip of white plastic in his collar, pulling it out and tossing it with sudden spite across the room. Another gasp, a rough sob sends hot tears into his eyes.

What does he have now?

Pieces of paper. Words. It's not a body next to his, a lover, a friend. It's growing old and cold alone in this place. Always this place. This job.

"No." He folds the paper unevenly, stands shakily and pushes it into his pocket.

And he knows there are knives in the kitchen, pills in the bathroom, water in the faucets, electricity in the walls. He could snap away into nothing and then he'd feel nothing. Nothing and no one could hurt him like this again.

"I don't want to." It comes out as less than a whisper.

The knowledge of every sharp edge and poison, doors out of this life, presses at him insistently.

And where is God now? Where is his comfort in the face of this?

"Where are you!" He shouts.

The walls ring like bells.

Silence reigns over him in their wake.


	14. Chapter 14

_I've been unable to find a full catholic funeral script online, but this prayer seemed to fit the theme of the chapter, so please forgive any inaccuracies. I was CoE until I became pagan, so...yeah, Catholicism isn't my strong point._

_Btw – check out my novel on my profile page _

Dean lies in bed and stares at the wall.

Between him and the freshly painted plaster he can make out the shadow of the bedside lamp, his alarm clock, and on the wall itself is a vague stippling of light as the risen sun comes through the curtains.

Lisa comes in, fully dressed and darker than the shadows. Perching on the side of the bed she touches his bare arm where it lies on top of the sheets.

"Honey, Sam's going to be here in half an hour."

Dean swallows. He and Sam haven't spoken since Dean confessed to sleeping with his priest, Sam had even suggested to their dad that perhaps they should have the funeral someplace else, but John had insisted that Mary wanted this. So they were stuck.

"He's bringing your Dad...I put your suit out for you."

Dean doesn't move, just closes his eyes.

The sheets rustle as Lisa lies down next to him, putting her arm around his waist.

"She loved you so much...we're going to do this one last thing for her, ok? I know you can do it." She kisses the back of his neck. "I'll be right there with you."

Dean squeezes her hand, then sits up, gets off the bed and goes into the bathroom.

He runs the shower, hot and powerful against the tiles, and he sits down on the closed toilet, lowering his head into his hands.

Today he buries his mother.

Today he and Castiel, bury his mother.

(-*-)

It is perhaps wrong to think it, as they file into the church and take their seats, but the funeral feels a lot like his wedding.

Dean sits in between Lisa and his dad, looking up at the altar where Castiel stands as stiffly and unmoving as a statue. Their whole family look like lines of crows, dressed in black and hunched up together.

There's the same sense as there was at the wedding, that Castiel is disappointed but unsurprised with the turn of events. Still, it makes Dean feel slightly sick to see that in the short month since he'd left Castiel's company entirely, the other man has become almost a ghost of himself, pale and thin as a wet sheet on a line.

Part of Dean wishes that they were in a different church, with a different priest. But the rest of him is very aware that Castiel has been there for every significant moment in his life in the past few years; his wedding, the christening of his child, his mother's diagnosis...and now her funeral. A familiar face, a familiar cadence in his sonorous voice that despite himself, Dean still finds himself waiting to hear, knowing that right now it would provide more comfort than he deserves.

Yet as the funeral mass commences, and Castiel progresses through it, Dean becomes aware that something is very wrong with him.

He isn't really looking at Castiel, is in fact avoiding any glance towards the priest and the draped coffin at the front of the church. But the priest's voice wavers as he leads them through the service, and more than once he pauses, just a little too long, as if he's forgotten what he needs to say, or has some doubt in his ability to get the words out.

At the last prayer, John blinks and tears run out of his eyes, down his face, and Sam takes one of his hands, Dean the other. Dean glances up and looks at Castiel, who's face is so white he looks dead, the dark haired man raises a hand to ease the tight collar at his throat, reading the prayer with paper coloured lips.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn, for they will be comforted."

Dean thinks of his mother, so kind and patient and wonders why he'd ever worried that she wouldn't love him if she really knew him. He'd written her off as perfect, and deserving of that perfection in her sons, he'd never taken the chance that maybe she'd still value him, still love him if she knew he was gay.

Now he wished he had.

"Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God."

Dean thinks he see's Castiel's eyes grow a little deader at that.

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted, for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven."

The ceremony concludes, and Dean, Sam, John and Bobby, one of his parent's close friends, walk slowly to the front, lifting the coffin between them, the white flowers on top shaking as they shoulder the shiny wooden box. John's hands shake as he lifts them to support the box, Sam is blinking back tears, and Dean feels like a hole has been punched through his chest. They walk out into the daylight, and Castiel goes with them, the other mourners disappearing until it's just them, the family at the grave side. Jess standing with Sam, Dean standing with Lisa, their Dad and Bobby at the foot of the grave. The bearded man holding John's elbow tightly, keeping him grounded.

Castiel watches John throw the handful of earth onto the coffin.

Bobby leads him away and Sam and Jess follow shortly after.

Dean squeezes Lisa's hand.

"I'll be in the car." She tells him gently.

And then she's gone.

Dean and Castiel stand on opposite sides of an open grave, and both men feel the pull of it, of death and the end, dragging at them.

Castiel raises one hand to his throat, tweaks quickly and throws his hand out, something light strikes Dean in the chest.

He catches it automatically.

And then Castiel is walking away, and Dean is alone with a hole in the ground, and a box of the things that used to make up his mother.

Dean looks down at the slip of white plastic in his palm, watches Castiel walk away, unprotected, unconnected.

And the urge to go with him is so strong that for a moment a kind of vertigo swamps him, he looks down at the ground, terrified he's going to fall.

(-*-)

Castiel is gone before the day is out.

One last job, a last duty to fulfil – and now Mary Winchester is buried, she had the funeral she deserved, and Castiel can leave.

He takes almost nothing with him, a suitcase half full of clothes, a few books, canned goods from the pantry, comb, toothbrush...he feels like a refugee from his own life.

It occurs to him that he would have preferred it if Dean had killed him, it would have been kinder. But today, more than any other day, he pushes that thought aside. How selfish, in the wake of the worlds loss of Mary Winchester. Such a good woman, and such a kind wife and mother. Castiel would have been proud to call her his own.

Now he has no idea where he's going, or what he plans to do, his only goal is to never again be called 'Father Novak' and maybe not even 'Castiel'. If he could simply split his skin open and emerge as a different person, he would do so in a second.

If he could forget Dean, forget his entire life, he would do so without a thought. He feels wasted away, as if a sickness has devoured his muscles and rendered him weak and aching. He feels everything as a knife to his innermost, tenderest places.

All he has now is loss, and pain and loneliness.

All he knows now is that the thing in him, the thing that wanted someone else in his life, the part that hoped, that loved – has been cauterized.

Dean Winchester burnt the heart out of him.


	15. Chapter 15

_Just so you know, my novel 'Me and Mine' is now available in hard copy. See my profile for details _

Sam sits up alone in his living room, nursing a beer and looking at the blank television screen. Jess is asleep upstairs, and he hasn't the heart to wake her. But he can't sleep. Not with his mother in a box underground where they left her. Not right now.

Of course, what he really wants is his brother. Their dad is grieving, staying up with Bobby and trading memories if Sam's instincts are correct. But Sam needs Dean for this, and Dean is somewhere else.

With what Sam knows...it's like seeing the rotten heart of the picket fence world he's in; Dean had been screwing his priest since day one of his marriage, Lisa had no idea it was a sham, Dean's son had no concept of who his father really was, he had another child on the way, and their Dad had no idea who his son was.

Worst of all? Sam had seen the priest break, right in front of him, when he told him Dean had gone away. And at the funeral, when Dean could barely stand to look at the front of the church, Sam had been transfixed. He had been watching a man working on his last shred of control, holding on for dear life as his world crumbled.

Sam hadn't been able to look away.

Dean had done that.

Sam loved his brother, had loved him since birth – and even after finding out about Dean's brief, buried history with guys, he had not lost that love for him. He'd only wanted Dean to tell the truth, and not bring more pain for himself by getting married.

After Dean had married Lisa, Sam had even found himself believing that he'd thought wrong, that maybe Dean could be happy with his straight, perfect life.

But now, knowing that Lisa was carrying their second child, seeing the ruin that Castiel had crumbled into...Sam wasn't sure he could forgive his brother.

Because Dean could talk about not hurting Lisa, about doing the right thing, and maybe he was. By her. But what he'd done to Castiel...was beyond cruel. Beyond hurt. Sam felt sick when he thought about what the other man had been through, what Dean had told him of what had happened.

He thought of Castiel, being the shadow to Dean's peppy, bright life. Being the shoulder he cried on, and the one he always left out in the dark.

Sam couldn't imagine how Castiel had coped, even up to today.

Suddenly, he wants to know.

Sam's up, off of the couch and heading for his car before he can even think about it. And maybe it's just a distraction from the loss of his mother, but right now, nothing seems more important than finding Castiel and asking him 'why?'. Because he really needs a reason to keep Dean in his life right now.

A light rain falls onto the windscreen as he drives, growing heavier as he goes. Almost as if the elements are trying to deter him. Sam wonders what Dean is doing right now, whether he's remembering their mother, or desperate to call him, to talk.

What's holding Dean back exactly? Guilt, fear, shame?

Maybe all three.

Sam's driving over a darkened bridge, miles from anywhere and on his way to the quiet suburb where the priest's home is located, when Sam sees the man himself, standing just off the centre of the construction, looking down at the water.

Sam brakes hard, jumps out of the car and runs towards the shape that's picked out in his headlights.

"Father Novak?"

The man starts, turning guiltily and squinting at Sam through the dual beams of powerful light. Sam glances at the priest's feet, where a suitcase rests on the ground.

"You going somewhere?" he asks.

Castiel looks down at the case.

"Eventually." The other man looks at him, and even to Sam there's something not quite right with the priest's expression. "Is something wrong?"

"No..." Sam takes a step closer. "I was coming to see you actually."

"Oh...what about?" the priest asks pleasantly, as if they're in his kitchen having a lunchtime chat, and not on a bridge at way past midnight, where neither of them should be.

"About my brother." Sam says cautiously.

The dark haired man's face closes down.

"That." He turns back to the side of the bridge. "Is...not an issue."

"It is, you can't just...forget it." Sam says.

Castiel does something so unexpected that it raises all the hairs on Sam's body, like something walking over his grave.

He laughs.

Sam stands frozen while the priest laughs, a panicky, hysterical chuckle. He turns to look at Sam, mouth twisting to subdue the sound.

"Sam...you don't have to forget what never happened...and I'm the only one who says it did..." He laughs to himself again, and in the brilliant headlights of the car Sam can see fresh tears running down the other man's face.

"Castiel..." Sam takes a step forward, reaching out, suddenly very aware of how high up they are, of how deep the rushing water goes. "Come with me, ok? We'll fix this."

Castiel is outright shaking, and he leans against one of the steel supports near him, body curling into it as if he's trying to disappear.

"I think I'm going crazy." He laughs, but the laugh sticks, turns to a sob and back again, a terrifying sound that makes Sam want to run from this nightmare scenario. Instead he slowly crosses the space between them, and puts his arms around the priest, who jerks away from him, but allows himself to be held after a brief struggle.

With one hand, Sam picks up the suitcase, and with the other he leads Castiel to his car.

(-*-)

Sam lets himself in through the backdoor and takes Castiel upstairs through the darkened house. The guestroom is made up, a single bed, a mirror and dresser.

Castiel says nothing, but the room is probably as close to heaven as he's ever going to get. So calm and clean and small.

Sam sits him down on the bed and puts his suitcase by the door.

"You're wet through, you should get changed." Sam says quietly.

Castiel looks down at himself, his clothes are indeed soaked, even his skin is wet to the touch.

Sam opens the case after a few second and pauses, looking down at the sad little life it contains. Castiel's blue pyjamas are tangled up with a comb and a can of soup. He takes them out and lays the soft bundle of cloth next to the priest.

"I'm going to go get you something hot to drink." Sam tells him, feeling more and more like he's addressing a child. "Why don't you get changed?"

Castiel nods jerkily and when Sam leaves him he carefully removes his clothes, dries himself with a towel from the folded pile on the dresser, and puts on his pyjamas.

He wants to pray in thanks for this deliverance, but his brain produces only white noise. There are no words within easy reach. He gives up, feeling that hysterical pain rising in his chest again.

When Sam returns with a cup of hot milk, he finds Castiel sitting on the bed, crying silently. He puts the mug down quickly and puts his arm around the other man.

"It'll be ok..." He realises how futile it is to say such a thing. "Tomorrow...I can call a doctor but...I think you need to see someone. Like a counsellor? Maybe...I don't know."

Castiel shakes and Sam holds on to him.

"I'm really sorry this is happening to you." Sam whispers. "And I'm going to help...I promise." He squeezes Castiel's shoulder lightly. "But you have to tell me...why were you on that bridge?...because I have to know, if I have to watch you, or..."

Castiel shakes his head, hard.

"Ok." Sam murmurs. "I have to go tell Jess what's happening...get some sleep."

Sam closes the door softly behind him and goes down the hall to his and Jess' bedroom. He opens the door slightly and peers inside. The bed is rumpled, empty.

"Sam?" He turns and looks over the banister, down into the hall where Jess is a blot of shadow in the dark of the house.

"Jess...why're you up?"

"You were gone." Jess hisses up the stairs, as Sam finds his way to them and climbs carefully down. "Then Dean showed up and...I didn't know what to do so I just sat up with him, waiting for you to come home."

"Dean's here?" Sam asks, reaching the ground floor and catching sight of the bar of light showing under the living room door.

"Since just after two." Jess mutters. "He's...Sam I know the funeral was hard on both of you but..." she lowers her voice still further. "I'm really worried about him."

Sam feels a sudden and intense flare of sheer and utter rage against his brother. So strong it scares him.

"Just...go back to bed, ok? I'll handle this." He says, forcing himself to be calm. "And...I know this is...beyond unreal...but, Father Novak is staying with us for a while...he's in the guest room."

Jess looks at him strangely.

"I'll explain ...everything, in the morning." Sam promises.

Jess shakes her head wearily. "You'd better...just, talk to Dean ok?"

Sam watches her pad off to bed, and reaches reluctantly for the door handle. One thing's for sure, he really isn't in the mood to give Dean any sympathy right now.

He regrets the thought as soon as he opens the door.

Dean is still in his funeral suit, his tie missing and the top few buttons opened. He looks half dead, as bad as Castiel had appeared on the bridge.

"Dean...what the hell happened?" Sam asks from the doorway.

Dean looks up at him, and his eyes look as dead as the priest's, and about as despairing.

"I have no idea." Dean's elbows rest on his knees, and he bows his head of them. "But...I think my marriage is over."

"Over?" Sam rounds his brother and sinks down into the opposite seat.

Dean looks up at him. "So over." He swallows. "I just...I couldn't do it...she was looking at me, like she really wanted to help...and I couldn't do it." His eyes are red rimmed and Sam realises with a jolt that his older brother has been crying. He's never seen Dean cry before. "I don't want to lie anymore."

"So you just told her?" Sam feels another surge of anger. "Today, of all days?"

To his surprise, Dean doesn't grow defensive or angry in return, just hunches up smaller and takes the angry words like a well deserved beating.

The heat goes out of Sam then, he can't punish his brother, not when Dean's stuck in a hell of his own making.

"She asked me...if we should name the baby Mary...how proud Mom would be..." he blinks and dislodges a tear. "Only she wouldn't be...she'd hate me, Sam..." his jaw ticks with the sudden power of his own self loathing. "I hate me...I ruied, everything...Lisa, Ben, and now another kid, born into this...fucking...mess..." his shoulders shake. "And Cas...I ruined his life Sam...he..." Dean struggles to tear something out of his pocket, holding up the white plastic collar to Sam like a bloodied knife. "I fucked up." Dean's voice catches. "I fucked everything up."

And for the second time in as many hours, Sam is alone with a sobbing man, with no idea how to fix him.


	16. Chapter 16

_Just so you know, my novel 'Me and Mine' is now available in hard copy. See my profile for details _

"You're right."

They're the first words out of Sam's mouth, and although they taste bitter and sharp, he feels better for having said them.

"You fucked up. You should never have gotten married, you should never have let it go this far, with Lisa or Castiel...and right now is not the time for you to have realised that." He sighs, then gets up and goes to sit beside his brother, hand reaching out to pat Dean's arm. "The question now is...how are we going to fix it?"

Dean is silent for a long while, and Sam rubs his brother's forearm absently as he tries to put his own thoughts together.

"I don't know if I can." Dean says quietly. "I've been thinking about it...for years, Sam, and I can't do this, without hurting Lisa..."

"Dean, you've already hurt her." Sam reminds him. "You took...her time, her love and now...a lot of that is wasted." He hates the way Dean flinches at that, but he keeps going. "And she has every right to be pissed at you...because you did a pretty poor job of handling this." He considers for a moment, remembering the ghost-like man he'd brought home from the bridge. "But now..." he sighs. "Now it's more than Lisa, and your kids...it's Cas too. You made him a part of this, and now you've hurt him too. So you have to try and make things better for Lisa, and Ben...and him too." He shrugs. "That's your job now."

"How?" Dean looks at him, eyes looking so much older than they have any right to. "How can I even begin to..."

"Well...Cas is upstairs." Sam tells him, feeling a kind of exhaustion weighing on him. "Because I found him, walking on the bridge tonight with a suitcase full of random crap...Dean, I don't think he's even a priest anymore...and he is not coping. Spectacularly, not coping."

"He's here?" Dean glances at the ceiling, as if searching for Castiel's heartbeat through the floor.

"Yeah, and he needs help." Sam puts this to him firmly. "Therapy, for one...which you are going to pay for, because he sure as hell can't afford it." Sam slips into lawyer-mode, sharp and authoritative. "And you're going to work out your divorce, make sure Lisa has everything she needs, Ben and the baby too. You're going to have to make this up to her, because you're going to be involved with your kids for the rest of your lives. You're probably going to have to find a new job when her family find out...and you're not going to lie to her anymore. Or mess Castiel around."

Dean swallows, but he nods. Sam feels a little abashed by his outburst.

"And...I'm going to be here." Sam reminds him. "You'll have to tell Dad...but...we'll be there for you. Making sure you do the right thing."

"I should have asked you to do that a long time ago." Dean says.

"Yeah, well, I should have realised you needed it." Sam squeezes hi s arm. "I thought you were coping."

"I think maybe I did too." Dean sighs. He glances upwards again. "Can I see him?"

Sam takes in the hopeful, slightly guilty expression on his brother's face and wonders how he'd never suspected before. Dean's connection to Castiel is telegraphed by his every gesture, each facial expression. Not for the first time he considers Dean, who he'd once known everything about, and sees just how much he's missed. He wonders what Dean's relationship with Castiel is, and if he'll ever let him in on just how it came to be.

"I know what you must think, ok?" Dean says softly. "But...if he's not alright...and, I don't think he's been alright for a while...that's my fault...if I can do something to make it better...I want to."

Sam has no idea what happened between his brother and the priest that rendered Castiel so broken. But he does know that in all good conscience he can't allow it to continue like this.

"Maybe in the morning...I think he get some sleep."

He's expecting Dean to argue, but his brother just nods thoughtfully, still looking as hunched and guilty as he had when Sam came into the room.

"I'll make you up a bed on the couch." Sam tells him, then gets up to go fetch sheets and pillows. When he comes back, Dean is standing, unbuttoning his shirt slightly so that he can sleep in it more comfortably.

The question strikes suddenly and with no warning.

"Dean?"

"Mmm?" Dean turns to face him.

"Why him? I mean...after all this time...why is this all happening for him?"

Dean frowns slightly, and his eyes avoid Sam's for a moment as he tries to find the words that will form an answer.

"You don't have to..."

"He didn't pretend that it was ok." Dean tells him, eyes shyly finding Sam's again. "He didn't think it was right, that I cheated on Lisa...or that he was a priest and still sleeping with me. He called me on it, but we both still wanted it anyway." Dean looks down at his cuffs, unbuttoning them awkwardly. "Just after they told us that mom was going to die? He's the one I went to...and I trusted him, and the thought that I've hurt him is...so awful I can barely stand it." He looks down at the carpet, brown furrowed. "I have no idea if that's love...but...I think it's getting there...and that scares the shit out of me."

Sam props the pillows on the couch, then pat's Dean's shoulder.

"You can see him in the morning, if he's a little better...you might want to try explaining some of that to him."

Sam goes back upstairs, where his bedroom is dark and Jess is lying on her side restfully.

He isn't fooled for a moment. As soon as he lies down she opens her eyes.

"Sam, what is going on?"

"It's a long story." Sam mutters, mindful of Castiel only a thin wall away.

"I'm all ears." Jess prods.

"Short version? Dean cheated on Lisa. Dean's gay...and he's been sleeping with Father Novak."

Jess blinks, and he can practically hear her thoughts whirring.

"Oh my God..." she breathes finally.

"Yeah. So...they're both here, and tomorrow I think we have to get at least one of them into therapy, because...there's something going on there that really needs a specialist."

Jess smacks him on the arm, lightly.

"What about Lisa?"

"I told Dean to try and make things right with her, however long that takes." Sam tells her.

"But she's our friend." Jess whispers. "And we've got a houseful of people that betrayed her...how is that going to make her feel?"

Sam considers this.

"Maybe you could go over there tomorrow and talk to her, make sure she's doing ok?"

"I will." Jess sighs. "But they can't stay here, especially not Father Novak." At Sam's conflicted expression she elaborates. "He knowing slept with a married man, he christened her children, and performed her wedding...that isn't right."

Sam sighs. "He needs help."

"Then get it for him...just...put him somewhere else while he gets it."

They settle down to sleep, but Sam's mind is still reeling, the crazed balancing act he has landed himself in weighs on him through the night. Supporting Dean and helping Castiel without alienating Lisa looks set to be a huge task, not to mention filling their Dad in on everything that's happened.

Sam doesn't sleep for a while, and when he does, he does so fitfully.

(-*-)

Castiel wakes up in the early hours of the morning. His sleep, almost coma like in its intensity, has left him aching and bone weary. His mouth is also dry, and tastes of slightly soured milk from the drink Sam had brought him earlier. Although loath to wander about someone else's home in the predawn hours, he gets out of bed and pads over the carpet, feeling his way down stairs in the dark, intent on locating a glass of water.

The restless, rootless feeling of the past few days grips him again, and Castiel finds himself standing at the hall window for a long while, looking out on the houses and streetlights opposite, and the dark shapes of the trees. The world feels so disconnected from him, like it's left him behind, but at the same time his body doesn't feel like his own; more like a piece of furniture his mind is housed in.

He finds his way to the kitchen and locates a glass on the counter by the sink. He fills it, gulping the contents before setting it back down again.

On his way back up the hall, towards the foot of the stairs, he hears a sound, the creaking ruffle of someone turning their full weight over on a piece of furniture. There's a pause, a scuffle, and through the partly opened door of the living room, Castiel hears someone say his name.

He opens the door, disbelievingly, but it is really Dean, who clicks a lamp on and frowns against its light. There are sheets over his legs and he's still wearing the white shirt from the funeral, though it is now rumpled from being slept in.

"Dean?" Castiel doesn't mean to step forwards, but he does. "What are you..."

"I turned up...I guess before you did." Dean says, straightening up on the couch. "Sam said you were staying here." He looks at Castiel and the ex-priest feels such a strong stab of longing that he's ashamed of it.

Dean seems to catch his unease.

"Hey...don't be...it's ok, you know, if you don't want to talk..."

"I want to." Castiel says immediately. "But you're...you have your life..."

Dean huffs humourlessly. "I'm sleeping on my brother's couch. I up and left my life."

Castiel is mortified at the lance of joy that goes through him. What about Lisa? He chides himself. What about his children? It doesn't stop the sensation of relief from spreading, warring with the black hopelessness in his mind.

"I told her, everything." Dean drops one foot to the ground, and Castiel marks his bare legs, the absence of pants, feeling terrible even as the thought makes its home in him.

"Oh." Is all Castiel can say to that. Dean looks pained, and unwillingly, Castiel steps closer.

"I want to apologise...to everything I did. Hell, for everything I didn't do." Dean looks at him as Castiel comes closer, holds up a hand to coax the ex-priest into sitting on the rumpled sheets beside him. "What Sam told me...I'm so sorry for what I did, Cas...and, I'm going to try and make it better, I swear."

Castiel folds his arms in his lap, and between Dean's earnestness and his own current state, clothed only in pyjamas, he feels altogether too exposed. He wants, but he wants conflicting things; for Dean to leave, for Dean to kiss him, to beg Lisa's forgiveness, to steal away her husband, to run from the house, to never leave its walls again...so many things, so many impulses.

Dean's fingers touch his own.

"I should never have left you." Dean whispers throatily, and dimly, Castiel realises that Dean must have cried earlier, his reddened eyes and thickened throat tell of its strain. "What you did for me...how I felt with you...it should always have been you, Cas...I should have chosen you, not Lisa, not the wedding...I wish I'd just followed through with you."

"I'd still have been a priest." Castiel draws his fingers away and folds them together in his lap. "It would have been...it's still, impossible." Unbidden he feels a trembling of emotion in his chest. "Dean...I'm not a priest...I'm not anything, and I don't know what to do."

Dean's arm around him is both welcome, and unwanted, and the combination only tightens Castiel's chest further. But the touch of rumpled cotton under his cheek, the warmth of Dean's chest against his own, is more comforting than anything else he's experienced, and more than he probably deserves.

Dean's hand runs down his back.

"You have me...if you want me." Dean murmurs, and something in Castiel breaks wide open at that. A last defence shattering at the sudden influx of hope. "And you're still you; just without the collar."

They sit like that for a long while, Dean unwilling to let go, Castiel not wanting to be without the shelter of Dean's hold on him. Eventually, Dean squeezes Castiel softly and says, "You should go get some rest."

Castiel's hand finds his.

"Come with me?"

Dean looks at him, and there's too much to this one question. Too many thing to think about; the right thing, the wrong thing, the good thing, the bad thing.

So he just does what feels right.

When Sam goes to wake Castiel the next morning, he finds him safely wrapped up in bed, Dean sleeping on the floor beside it, wrapped in blankets. Their hands still linked.


	17. Chapter 17

_Just so you know, my novel 'Me and Mine' is now available in hard copy. See my profile for details _

Breakfast the next morning is supremely awkward, especially for Sam.

He's opted to take the day off work to take Castiel to the therapist's office, but Jess still has to get into the office. So it is that Sam ends up sitting at the breakfast table in his weekend clothes, opposite his wife in her suit, who casts frequent, disapproving glances over the heads of their two guests.

Dean and Castiel are silent as they crunch toast, side by side, Dean in his crumpled suit, Castiel in a thin grey T-shirt and jeans. And although they refrain from touching, Sam can still see them, lying next to each other, fingers linked sleepily. That is what he's trying to preserve, he realises, that one small moment of connection. Out of all of this, he wants more than anything to extract two whole people from the wreckage, linked together against all odds.

Jess's coffee cup clinks down onto the table.

"I'm going to see Lisa today." She tells him, and the kitchen at large.

Sam glances at Dean.

"Do you need anything picked up?...or...I don't know, if you wanted to tell her something..."

"No...I should go." Dean fixes his eyes on the table top, steeling himself. "I'll call, asking if it's ok if I come by."

"Well, I expect you'll need some things for your new place." Jess says lightly.

"Yeah." Dean looks beyond miserable at the prospect.

"And...'Castiel'...maybe once you and Sam get done at the therapists, you can check out some listings?" Jess says.

"I will make sure to do so." Castiel looks her in the eye. "Thank you for being so hospitable, I realise that this must be difficult for you."

Sam is glad that Jess has the grace to look just a little embarrassed.

Once she's left for work, Sam takes Castiel out to the car, and Dean comes with them. Somehow he isn't surprised.

Dr Barnes is a friend of Sam's, he's done a lot of business with her over the years, referring divorcing couples and victims of violence to her as a matter of course. She's the best he knows, and quite aside from anything else, she'd also proven herself to be both discrete and understanding. Which is why he's surprised when her first words to him on arrival are:

"You have got to be kidding me."

Sam stands in Pamela's office, hoping that the two men in the waiting room hadn't heard that exclamation.

"No, I'm being perfectly serious." He says, making a 'tone it down' gesture with his hands.

"But...Dean? really, Dean?" Pamela gets up from behind her desk, beaded shall fluttering over her jeans and faded tank top. "I mean, I've met your brother, and I'm a professional, so...really? because it's something I should have noticed."

"He's had a lot of practice at hiding it." Sam shrugs. "But...it's Castiel I'm worried about."

"As you should be, way you tell it the guy has some deep seated emotional crap to hoe over." Pamela glances at the door and frowns. "You're brother and a priest? Now that is...weird, surreally so."

"Do you think you can help?"

"Oh I can help." Pamela smiles at him, "Just...I was surprised...bring 'em in. Priest guy first." She waves a hand inclusively and scoops a stack of files off of one of her chairs, setting them on the floor.

Sam opens the door to the waiting area.

"She can see you." He tells them. "Castiel, first." He adds quickly, as both men stand up. Dean sits reluctantly back down.

Sam takes Castiel's vacated seat as the door to Pamela's office snicks closed.

"She's good, you don't have to worry." Sam tells him.

"I'm not." Dean folds his arms over himself.

"You don't have to talk about anything you don't want to."

"I know that...I'm just..." Dean sighs. "Talking about this crap is a new thing for me."

"Well, at least you have me, and Dad when we tell him...I don't think Cas has anyone else."

Dean looks down at the floor, tense and saddened.

"I...uh, went through his suitcase." Sam admits. "This morning...and there's nothing in there about a family, no pictures or letters, he has an address book, but it's blank except for the last church he worked at." Sam studies his brother's face intently. "I don't think he even has any friends."

"He doesn't." Dean mutters.

"Did he tell you that?"

"I know that." Dean sighs. "He's gay, ok? And a priest, so it's pretty safe to say he's not making any lasting connections through work...and he never mentioned his family, or any people he was close to...there's nothing about them in his house that I've seen." He narrows his eyes, curling into himself as if suddenly cold. "He once told me that I was lucky to have Lisa, to have children...because he never could...I'm pretty sure he decided he was dying alone some day."

Dean sits back and rests his head against the wall.

"And after all that I went and broke the sonofabitch's heart. He deserved better."

"You can still give him that, better." Sam explains. "If you want to be with him, if you want to give him that life..."

"What's with the 'if'?" Dean asks suddenly.

"It's just...you've never really been honest with us...or even with yourself, about what it is you want...and maybe you're just wanting to be with Castiel now because you feel like you owe him." Sam says quietly.

"I do, owe him." Dean says darkly.

"But that's not a reason to..."

"You want to know a bad reason to stay with someone? Not wanting to tell the truth." Dean glares at him. "That's a terrible reason to do anything, and whatever I've done to Cas, I never lied to him...I never didn't want him enough, and I never wanted..." He catches himself, almost like the words won't come out of his mouth, even though he's trying.

"...you never wanted, to leave him." Sam fills in.

Dean turns away and glares at the floor.

"Oh my G-...why did you never say anything?"

"Because it...didn't matter...I had to leave."

"But now you don't have to...you can be with him."

"If he wants me." Dean looks at him, and Sam sees again the sudden age in his brother's eyes, how tired and alone he seems. "When he gets better, and I really want him to...he isn't going to..to need me...or want me...and...I don't want to build on something that's going to disappear."

"Have some faith in him" Sam murmurs. "I think he really loves you."

"What he doesn't know about love could fill a library." Dean grimaces. "Not that I'm an expert...but at least I had Mom and Dad to go on...and you and Jess...Cas's never had anyone."

Sam sits beside him in silence for a while.

"Just...hang on...thinking the worst is what got you here, remember?" He says after a while.

Dean doesn't reply.

(-*-)

Inside of the office of Pamela Barnes, therapist and general paragon of common sense, sits facing Castiel.

"So...Sam tells me you're depressed."

"He thinks I am...I feel terrible, so I suppose it might be true."

"And why do you think that is?" Pamela leans back in her chair and regards him speculatively.

Castiel's eyes wander away from her face, turning blankly to the wall behind her.

"I think I fell in love with someone that didn't want me." His mouth twists. "It sounds so juvenile."

"Have you ever fallen in love before?"

"...I don't think so...No." Castiel says, surprising himself.

"How do you know?" the therapist asks pleasantly.

Castiel looks at her for a moment.

"Because I've never hurt like this before."

"Do you think that's a healthy way to feel?"

Castiel shakes his head, unable to speak.

"And you'd like to stop feeling that way?"

He nods.

"I can help you with that." Pamela smiles slightly, and pushes some of her dark hair behind her ear.

"I've never felt anything like this before." Castiel feels suddenly panicked. "If you, if you help me...will it just go away?...I won't feel anything, at all?"

Pamela tilts her head slightly and watches him, a trace of concern on her features.

"You're worried that if it doesn't hurt...then it isn't real? That this is the only way to love?"

"It's the only way I've ever loved. Dean is the only person I've ever..." He trails off and looks at her, silently asking for help.

"Why don't we talk about what it was like before Dean?" Pamela says kindly. "We'll work up to it, and that way we can sort out how you feel about him."

Castiel nods, a little hopeful.

"Why don't you tell me about your family?" Pamela asks, taking out a fresh legal tablet and a pen.


	18. Chapter 18

_Just so you know, my novel 'Me and Mine' is now available in hard copy. See my profile for details _

_Also, apologies for the crappy quality for writing in the last few updates, and their lateness. My course has been super busy. _

_This should be considered the last update – I was writing, and it reached a little bit of a closure point and I thought...this is where I wanted to take them. This is how it should end Also, before anyone points it out – I know Cas was talking to Pamela at the end of the last chapter, this is a cut to the session with Dean._

"My family are fine, great." Dean tells Dr Barnes, arms crossed over his chest.

Pamela looks at him, not buying it for a second.

"Care to expand on that?"

"Not really."

"Dean..."

"My Mom's dead. My Dad's barely coping. I don't want to talk about it." Dean tells her.

"And when you were a child?" Pamela asks, softly but relentless.

Dean looks down at his hands.

"They didn't hit me or yell, or drink, cheat on each other..."

"Good...and how were they together."

"Perfect." Dean says without hesitation.

"Interesting choice."

"They were."

Pamela nods, noting on her legal tablet.

"How so?"

"They were just...they went out for dinner, had parties, he mowed the lawn, she made lemonade. Perfect."

"And that's what you always wanted in a marriage?"

Dean is caught off guard, still seeing his Mom and Dad in their bed on a Sunday morning, eating toast and arguing over the sports section.

"I wanted...just...normal life– and that was it. That's what everyone had."

Pamela looks at him wryly. "Just because you grew up in a Christmas card, doesn't mean that everybody else did."

"I know that." Dean mutters. "But, it's what everyone wants. To be happy."

"Did it make you happy?"

"That's not the point."

"That's exactly the point." Pamela tells him. "Did, getting married, building your family, your home, make you happy?"

"I stayed, didn't I?" He bursts out angrily. "I stayed with her, with them...I did everything I was supposed to do, and it didn't..."

"It didn't what?" Pamela looks at him curiously.

"...work." Dean's shoulders sag. "It didn't work."

"Did you really do everything?" Pamela asks, leading him down the thorny path of blame that Dean has looked down in despair for years.

"I tried." Dean bites the side of his lip. "I...all the time we were dating, ever since we met...I was on top of it, I had it under control and then..." his mouth moves in mute confusion. "I didn't. It just, got away from me, and I couldn't get it back...and then it was too late. The whole thing was just...cracked."

"And that event...that pushed it over the edge for you...was that the first time you and Castiel..."

"I wanted him, that night, at the bar – more than I wanted Lisa, more than I wanted anything – the house, the car, my job...even my family. I just wanted him, and I couldn't turn it off, after...I just kept wanting him."

"And what do you feel for him now?"

"I don't know."

"Well, what do you want to happen now? Do you want him to stay?"

"I don't know..."

"But you don't want him to leave."

"No." Dean says quietly.

"Did it ever occur to you that maybe, what made your parents perfect was their desire to be together, above all else? And not that they were normal, or average?"

"You're saying I want Castiel, and that's what he had over Lisa, not just him being a man."

"You said that." Pamela says, raising a small smile. "I'm just here to ask questions."

(-*-)

"So, how was it?"

Castiel is bunched up against the headboard of the single bed in Sam's spare room, wearing a pair of grey sweat pants borrowed from Jess, and a white dress shirt borrowed from Sam. Dean sits with his back against the far wall, legs laid out on the floor, also in clothes borrowed from Sam. After therapy he hadn't much felt like going to Lisa's, but Sam had gone after he'd taken them home, to pick up a few things. With Jess still at the office they had the house to themselves for a while, and Dean wanted to talk about what had happened at the therapist's office. Castiel had seemed even more closed down than usual in the car.

"It was..." Castiel curls up tighter. "It horrible."

"What'd she say to you?" Dean asks, feeling a stab of dislike towards the woman who'd done this to Cas, before remembering that he's done a hell of a lot worse to him himself.

"Nothing, nothing that wasn't just...questions. Questions about things that I didn't want to question." He blinks and looks at Dean, as frightened and naive as a man half his age. "You're the first person I've ever loved, and it's killing me."

Dean feels like he's been kicked in the mouth. He swears he can taste blood.

"I love you." He says, from his place on the floor, in clothes that aren't his.

Castiel looks at him.

"I don't know how." Castiel whispers. "I don't know what to do now...what to want...how do..." He stops, unable to articulate anything that's whirling through his brain.

"I can't tell you." Dean says. "Because I don't know. Any of this...I've never loved anyone and had them at the same time. I've never had to function everyday with it..."

"Lisa..."

"I lived with her, and I put my life with hers, but I don't think I loved her like this...half the time this hurts, honest to God feels like my heart's dying."

"I told her it hurt." Castiel fixes Dean's eyes with his own. "It hurts you?"

"All the time."

Castiel creeps down from the bed, feet sliding over the covers first, over the edge to find the floor. He sinks down as he stands up coming to sit by Dean's feet. He wraps his arms around Dean's folded knees, leaning his head against them. Dean moves up, sliding from Cas's grasp and putting his arms around the smaller man.

They're kissing before either of them decides to, mouths wet and raw and blind. Shaking in each other's arms, feeling a pleasure of such depth and scope that it borders on agony. Hearts seized totally, arresting in their chests, because this, this...is it. This is all they've wanted, waited for, since always, and forever. Finding nothing in the world that could replace this, before they even knew what this was – having tried to find righteousness and direction, comfort and placid affection, having sampled a hundred dark delights between them, in alleys, cars and hotel rooms, to satisfy both hungry libidos and ravenous hearts. They have found, stumbled upon, an ache that pains as it satisfies, is sweet as it is desperate, all consuming, crippling, and yet inspiring, fortifying.

All that is, and still more.

Feeling full to burst with it, Dean rests his head against the curve of Castiel's throat, and he in turn clutches the other man as close as physically possible.

"I never wanted to leave you." Dean says, pressing so close that he can feel Castiel's heart beating.

"I don't ever want to let you go." Castiel feels the words well up from some spring inside of him. True before he even thinks of them.

They stir themselves from the floor as one, shedding borrowed clothes and dropping them to the floor. The single bed is a small space for two grown men, but they crowd the soft mattress, pulling a silky blanket up over each other, bare limbs moving with the rhythm of breath, brushing together and unleashing waves of agonising feeling, comfort, love, desire, hesitation, bliss, exile.

They stroke each other's backs as they lie face t face, and Castiel realises that his breath is coming very fast, Dean's too – their hearts racing, lips parted in exertion, though they lie still, as if merely expression emotion had somehow exhausted them both. He cups Dean's face with one hand, thumb tracing his lips, full and shuddering with breath. Their bodies are pressed so close, so hard against each other, that it almost hurts. They kiss and Castiel feels swallowed whole. It's the first time they have been together, at least, that's how it feels; their bodies pressed together as if designed to do so, Dean's chest against his, their legs twined strongly, gripping each other as if afraid they will sink through the bed. Their kisses are shaky and hard, but tender, desperate. Both men feel as if they are burning up, feverish and shivery with cold.

They move, skin dragging on skin as their hips rock, rubbing and sparking pleasure to send the agonies of want and need and love skyrocketing. Both men grip each other hard, bones shifting at the pressure, their mouths sealed together forcefully, letting no greedy, grieving sound of pleasure escape, save muffled cries of yearning, which are consumed only by their ears.

And until exhaustion claims them, sleep creeping in to relax their grip, they clutch each other, knowing that they were made, arranged for this moment. This feeling, so terrible and fantastic that it threatened to destroy them both, was made for them and them alone. As if they were the first lovers.

Nothing, not the trials to come, the inconvenience of building new lives, the apologies, the amends that must be made. The suffering that would be faced. Nothing would touch them, nothing would tear this apart, it was too strongly joined.

Right then is when they know that it is the earth that shall move for them.

And not the other way around.


End file.
